“He was a great guy,” Hardy said. “I’d like to see his name cleared.”
Often, in early June, snow remains in the high passes on the John Muir Trail.
Michelle Maier and her companion had packed out of Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite yesterday, camping last night at Lyell Fork. Though the rangers going out had warned them that the way would be snow-blocked, today’s goal was to get over Donohue Pass, elevation 11,056 and then descend a thousand or so feet down the other side. This early in the season, the sight of other campers up here wasn’t always a daily event, and neither Michelle nor her companion had seen a soul all day.
Michelle was planning to spend four more days in the back country, then get to San Francisco in time to catch her flight to Barcelona, where she’d enrolled in a gourmet cooking class for the entire summer. This had entailed giving up the apartment she’d kept since college. Possibly she could have sublet the thing, but she didn’t want to be bound to return to the Bay Area when the class was complete. What if she got offered a sous-chef job somewhere? Or just wanted to stay overseas?
Her companion was a new friend. Gina was the first new friend, although not the only one, she’d made since John Holiday’s death. Michelle had thought it was probable she’d be the only person at John’s burial in Colma; certainly she expected to be the only woman there. But Gina Roake had been at the gravesite with some men, one of whom had been John’s lawyer.
After the interment, they’d invited her to an Irish bar. Thinking Roake must have been another of John’s girlfriends, Michelle didn’t want to go at first, but then Gina’s situation had become clear—she had lost her own fiancé, also to violence, and evidently on the same day John had died. So all of them from the gravesite sat and talked until it got dark and the men had to go home. She and Gina had stayed on at the bar. Gotten smashed.
The next day, both of them dying of alcohol poisoning, she had accompanied Gina to her fiancé’s funeral, attended by the same three men who’d been at John’s, as well as about six hundred other close personal friends and acquaintances of David Freeman’s, who had evidently been somebody important, although Michelle had never heard of him.
But the connection between the two grieving women had become strong. They’d gone on their first hike together—a couple of miles around Tilden Park in Oakland—last January. A few weeks ago they’d walked the Bay to Breakers race. Getting in shape. Having some fun. At least once every two weeks they went out to dinner, usually at someplace Michelle would recommend.
The first time, they’d gone to Jeanty at Jack’s. Michelle had shown up in her usual camo gear and afterward felt like a bit of a fool. Gradually, she rethought her style, or lack of. Recently, both women had taken to dressing up for these dinners. Even in San Francisco, where the odds did not favor single women, to say the least, they would almost always have the clear opportunity to meet men. Offers to buy drinks. None of these advances had gone anywhere, but they were flattering nonetheless. Nonthreatening.
Michelle wondered what in the world she had been so afraid of.
And knew the answer, of course. Everything. Her funky, stupid hide-me clothes. Hiding out in the corners of restaurants and libraries. Communicating by email. The small, familiar world of her small, familiar apartment.
Now, well into early evening, the two women had been hiking in long shadows for an hour or more when they came around a bend in the path and found themselves suddenly squinting into the sunlight that reflected off a field of ice that covered the entire trail.
“At least now we know why we haven’t seen anybody coming the other way,” Roake said. She unshouldered her pack and took a long drink of water. Grimaced. “This iodine pill thing. I don’t think I’m getting very used to the taste.”
“I stopped using it,” Michelle said.
Roake stopped in mid-drink. “Then why am I still gagging on this stuff? I thought there was giardia”—a particularly unpleasant intestinal parasite—“everywhere up here.”
“There is, I suppose. But my dad used to hike up here all the time and he never used it, either. And never got sick.” She shrugged. “If I’ve learned anything the past year, Gina, it’s that the world’s a dangerous place. It’s never really been safe, although it’s comforting to pretend it is. But really there’s risk everywhere. Might as well embrace it and enjoy the days. So I’m going to drink the goddamned good-tasting, non-iodized water.”
Roake took another pull at her canteen, made another face. “Will you think I’m a wimp if I don’t?”
“Absolutely.” A big grin. “But who cares what I think? You do it your way; I’ll still like you.”
Michelle stood up, brushed off her bottom, stared at the ice shelf looming up ahead of them. “Talk about risk,” she said. “Do you want to go for this? Maybe we should give it up?”
Roake, too, was on her feet. “And miss the best view in the Sierra? I’d rather die trying.”
“So we go?”
“Lead on, girlfriend, lead on.”
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s Imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Second Chair
A Signet Book / published by arrangement with the author
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2004 by The Lescroart Corporation
This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.
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ISBN: 978-1-1012-0994-3
A SIGNET BOOK®
Signet Books first published by The Signet Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,
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Electronic edition: March, 2006
ALSO BY JOHN LESCROART
The First Law
The Oath
The Hearing
Nothing but the Truth
The Mercy Rule
Guilt
A Certain Justice
The 13th Juror
Hard Evidence
The Vig
Dead Irish
Rasputin’s Revenge
Son of Holmes
Sunburn
To Jack Sawyer Lescroart
Contents
PART ONE
PROLOGUE
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
PART TWO
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
PART THREE
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
>
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Almost all our faults are more pardonable than the methods we think up to hide them.
—François de la Rochefoucauld
PART ONE
PROLOGUE
Only four minutes remained in sixteen-year-old Laura Wright’s life as she came out of the bathroom of the small apartment on Beaumont Street in San Francisco. Her eyes glistened with the residue of recent tears. But in the bathroom she’d splashed water over her face and washed away the smeared mascara and makeup, and now her skin glowed. A damp tendril of blond hair hung over a broad, unlined forehead.
She walked through the tiny living room and over to where Mr. Mooney, her drama coach, leaned over the kitchen table, making some notes in his neat hand in the margins of the script they were rehearsing. At her approach, he straightened up. In the brighter light of the kitchen, Laura’s eyes picked up some of the turquoise in her blouse.
Mooney wore a kind face, projected an easy manner. Ten years before he’d been leading man material and now, though still trim and good-looking in a conventional way, his hair had thinned and gone slightly gray, a hint of jowl marred his jawline. He smiled down at her.
“Better?” he asked.
She nodded, still too emotional to trust herself with her voice.
The two stood facing each other for a moment, and then Laura reached out her hands and stepped into him. After a minute, her shoulders began to shake and Mooney, holding her, moved his hands over her back, the smooth fabric of the silk. “It’s all right,” he said. “It’s going to be all right.”
“I know. I know it will be.” Her face was buried into the hollow of his neck.
“It is now,” Mooney said.
She nodded again. “I know. Just. . . just thank you.” She stepped back, a little away, and looked up at him. “I didn’t mean to get this way.”
“The way you are is fine. I’m just glad you found the courage to tell somebody. Holding that inside can be so hard.”
“I figured I could trust you.”
“You figured right.”
“I know, but . . . what was that?”
Mooney crossed to the window, looked out to the street. “Nobody. Nothing.”
Laura sighed, a deep exhalation. “I didn’t think Andrew could be back already. I don’t know if I’m ready to face him. He’ll be upset if he finds out I told you first. I mean, it’s his baby, too. Maybe I can just say I started crying right after he left and you asked what was wrong . . .”
“Which is exactly what happened.”
She nodded. “I know. But Andrew’s been a little funny about you and me.”
“You and me? What about you and me?”
“Our relationship. Yours and mine. We actually broke up about it once.”
Mooney had to suppress a laugh. “About what, exactly?”
“He thought I had a crush on you. I did, in fact.”
“You had a crush on me?”
“When we started the play, yeah, rehearsing here. A little. He was just so jealous, and then I got so mad when he accused me.”
“Of what?”
“You know. Having a thing with you.”
Now Mooney did allow a small chuckle. “Well, by now I hope he knows that didn’t happen. And besides, this is about you. It’s your body. You get to decide what to do.” A pause. “And you know, it might not be the worst idea in the world to talk to your parents.”
“No way,” she said, shaking her head. “They’d kill me. They wouldn’t want to be bothered. Trust me, this I know.” Her eyes began to well up again.
Mooney stepped near to her and brushed a tear where it had fallen onto her cheek. “It’s okay,” he said. “In a few months this will all be behind you. It’s just getting through the tough part.”
“I so hope you’re right. I feel like such a fool for letting this happen. I mean, it was just the one time.”
“It only takes once.” Mooney spoke gently. “You might want to keep that in mind, though, in the future.”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s locked in.” But again her composure slipped. Tears still threatening, she stood looking helplessly up at him. “Do you think I could get one more hug?”
“As a special request, one short one.” He put his arms around her.
She pressed herself against him, squeezed hard, then all but jumped back out of his embrace as a knock came on the door. “Oh God,” she said. “There’s my great timing again. That’s got to be Andrew. What if he saw us?”
Mooney held her at arm’s length. “Laura,” he said, “Andrew’s a great guy. You don’t have to worry about him, and even if he saw us, he knows you love him. Really. You just take care of yourself and do what you have to do and everything will be fine. I promise.”
Mooney didn’t know it, but his last words were a lie. Another knock sounded, and he moved to get the door.
1
Hello.”
“Amy Wu, please.”
“This is Amy.”
“You sleeping? I wake you up?”
“No. Just lying down for a minute.”
“So Friday afternoon, you’re not at work?”
“No. Right. I’m not feeling too well. Who is this anyway?”
“Hal North. You remember me.”
“Of course, Mr. North. How are you? How’d you get my home number?”
“You gave it to us last time, remember?”
“Right. That’s right. I gave it to you. So how can I help you?”
“Andrew’s in trouble again.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. What kind of trouble?”
“Big trouble. The police just came and arrested him for murder. You still there?”
“Yeah. Did you say murder? Andrew?”
“Yeah, I know. But right. Two of ’em, actually.”
“I’m sorry. Two of what?”
“What did I just say? You paying attention? Murders. His teacher and his girlfriend.”
“Where is he now?”
“They took him to jail. I mean, to the Youth Guidance Center. He’s still not eighteen, or it would have been the jail.”
“Is that where you’re calling from, the YGC?”
“No. Me and Linda, we got a benefit tonight, so we’re still home for another two hours at least. We could probably be late to the thing and make it three if you . . .”
“I could be over in, say, a half hour.”
“Good. We’ll be looking for you.”
Wu checked herself in the bathroom mirror. No amount of makeup was going to camouflage the swollen bags under her eyes. Half-Chinese and half-black, Wu had a complexion that was dark enough as it was, and when exhaustion got the better of her, the hollows around her eyes deepened. Now, between the crying jags, the lack of sleep and the hangover, Wu thought she looked positively haggard, at least a decade older than her thirty years. Why guys would hit on her looking like this, she didn’t know, but there didn’t seem to be a shortage of them, not since she’d started going out almost every night to find whatever the hell she was seeking in the four months since her father died.
Still, prepping herself to visit Hal North, she did her best to make herself presentable. It wouldn’t do to look unprofessional. This was a legal matter, and she knew the potential client had made millions from his chain of multiplex movie theaters. At least he had been worth millions a couple of years ago, when Hal North’s corporate attorney—a classmate from law school—had recommended Wu for criminal work and she’d represented his stepson Andrew for a minor joyride beef. She’d gotten him off with a fine and some community service. The fees at her hourly rate had come to a little under two thousand dollars, but when the judge came down with his wrist-slap judgment, North wrote her a check for ten grand. She wasn’t sure if she should be flattered or insulted that he assumed he should tip his lawyer.
From now on, North had said in his forceful manner, she was his lawyer, that was all there was to it. Andrew, who’d been sullen and
distant throughout the entire proceeding, even broke a rare smile and concurred. She’d told them both that though she was flattered that they liked her work, all in all it would be better if the family wouldn’t need a criminal lawyer ever again. They both conceded that she probably had a point.
She lay down on the bed for two minutes, timed, with ice wrapped in a dish towel over her eyes. When she got up, she dried her face and started applying eyeshadow, mascara, lipstick. Her hand was steady enough, which was a nice surprise. This morning, brushing her teeth after she’d gotten home from whatever-his-name’s place a little after dawn, she’d dropped the toothbrush twice before she’d given up, called work for the fouth time in four months—very bad—to say she was sick, and crashed.
For a moment she considered calling North back and making another appointment for tomorrow. After all, the Norths had a benefit tonight—it came back to her now, they always had something going on—and they’d be in a rush. And she really did feel horrible. She wouldn’t be as sharp as she liked. But hell, that was getting to be the norm, wasn’t it? No sleep, no focus.
She hated herself for it, but she couldn’t seem to stop feeling that it didn’t matter anyway. Of course it mattered, she told herself. As her old boss David Freeman never tired of saying, the law was a sacred and beautiful thing. And Wu hadn’t dreamt of a career in it for five years, then studied it for three, and now have worked in it for five only to lose her faith and become cynical about it. That wasn’t who she was, not at her core. But it was who she acted like—and felt like—all too often lately.
The truth was—her bad angels kept telling her—that you didn’t really have to be as much on your game as she’d always taken as gospel, since law school. She’d proven that clearly enough in the past four months, when she’d essentially sleepwalked through no fewer than ten court appearances. No one—not even her see-all boss Dismas Hardy—had alluded to any problems with her work. She could mail it in, which was lucky, since that’s what she had been doing.
The Dismas Hardy Novels Page 140
