The Dismas Hardy Novels

by John Lescroart

  “I haven’t ever heard anything like that,” Mark said. “And if there was even a shred of truth to it, Sutro would have kicked him out. I’m sure of that.”

  “That’s why I’ve never believed them, either,” June said. Although Hardy was not sure this was the truth.

  He turned to the young man. “What about you, Lanny? Were there rumors? Did students think Mr. Mooney slept around?”

  “I’d never heard that,” Lanny said. But, of course, Hardy reasoned, Lanny had come to understand the damage he’d done to Andrew. Now he wanted to protect his best friend if he could, and that’s what he’d have to say.

  Hardy knew that if he were going to introduce any plausible alternative theory of the murders for either a jury or a judge to consider, he had to get more of a handle on the lives and circumstances of the two victims. If he could somehow establish that someone else had a strong motive to kill either or both of them, Hardy might be able to create some doubt about Andrew. At this stage, he’d take almost anything. But Laura’s parents had already shut him out.

  That left Mike Mooney. He’d thought that Lanny Ropke might give him some insight into the teacher beyond what he’d already gleaned from Andrew and his damned short story, but if anything, Lanny had only strengthened Andrew’s apparent motive—this was doubly damning because clearly that was the last thing he wanted to do.

  Any thought of spending time this weekend with Frannie or the kids had to be banished to the exigencies of the case, and they’d opted to get in one last ski weekend before the slopes closed. Now, full dark on this warm Friday night—Hardy pulled up to an address on Poplar Avenue in Burlingame, fifteen miles or so south of the city. He found he could park in an empty driveway—what a concept!—and then walked on stones placed in the lawn to a craftsman-style bungalow’s porch, where a light burned and where he pressed the bell, which echoed within.

  The door opened. “Mr. Hardy?” A practiced, formal smile. “Please, come in.” He offered a hand. “I’m Ned Mooney.”

  Mooney’s father lived on the property of the Baptist church which he served as minister, although he wasn’t wearing a clerical collar tonight at home, but a black V-neck pullover and black slacks. Hardy followed him into a dim, well-furnished semi-sunken living room with a baby grand piano in one corner and a lifetime of books and magazines on the dark wood built-in bookshelves. He took the deep red leather chair—one of a pair of them—that Mooney indicated. The reverend took the other one, sat back, smiled his professional smile again, threw one leg over the other and clasped his hands on his lap.

  There were deep bags under his eyes, a sallowness to the skin which wasn’t just the poor lighting. A few strands of gray hair covered his scalp. Reverend Mooney looked to be at least seventy years old. Though his handshake had been firm and his walk to this room steady, Hardy sensed a deep fatigue, as though he were drawing upon his last reserves of strength. “You said you’re defending the boy accused of shooting Michael,” he began in a very quiet voice, “so I’m not sure what I’ll be able to do to help you.”

  “I’m not, either, Reverend, though it might help you to know that what I’m most interested in is no different from the police. I want to identify your son’s killer. I don’t believe that’s my client.”

  “You don’t? Why not? From what I understand, the case against him is very strong.”

  “Actually, there are any number of problems with it, not the least of which is that there’s no physical evidence tying him to the murder weapon, no evidence that he fired a gun at all that night. And they have to prove he did. Andrew doesn’t have to prove he didn’t.”

  Mooney rubbed his weary eyes. “And they don’t have that?”

  “No, sir.”

  “What about all the yelling? Didn’t the man upstairs say they’d been fighting all night?”

  Hardy leaned in closer. “I talked about this with Andrew just this morning. Do you know what play they were practicing?”

  “Yes. I think it was Who’s Afraid of . . .” He stopped. “Where the characters are yelling at each other for half the play, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, sir.” He paused. “They weren’t fighting. They were rehearsing.”

  Mooney eased himself all the way back into his chair, slumped low. Eyes closed, he templed his hands over his mouth and blew into them. Finally, he opened his eyes again. “It doesn’t really matter,” he said. “It won’t bring him back.”

  “No. But the wrong man shouldn’t be punished. Would your son have wanted that? Would you?”

  He sat low in the chair, nearly horizontal. “I’ve spent all of my life in the service of God, Mr. Hardy. I don’t understand how He could have done this to me. After He took Margaret, Michael was all I had left.” The man’s sincerity was heartrending. “He was my pride and joy.” He pointed with an unsteady hand. “You see that piano over there? You should have heard Michael on it, playing like an angel and singing along, ever since he was child. He just had an immense and God-given talent. He was such a wonderful boy. Then those tapes. Do you see them? That whole second shelf? Those are the acting jobs, the television, even parts in some movies. I tell myself that someone born with that much, God only lets us keep them a short while before He wants them back. I tell myself . . .”

  Hardy understood what he was saying. He’d lost an infant son over thirty years before—also named Michael, he suddenly realized, but he wasn’t going to let himself get sidetracked down that path now. He was here for his client.

  “Reverend Mooney.” His voice barely intruded on the room’s stillness. “Aside from his performing, what was his life like? I’m trying to get a sense of if there might have been someone who would have a reason to want to hurt him.”

  The old man shook his head. “He didn’t have any enemies. Everybody loved him.”

  “Do you know if he’d had a run-in with one of his students? Maybe gave somebody a poor grade?”

  “You really didn’t know him, did you? He was the softest grader in the school. I’d ask him sometimes if he shouldn’t be harder on the kids, if he wasn’t doing them some kind of disservice, being so easy. He wasn’t preparing them for real life. But he always said I didn’t understand the importance of grades nowadays. You get one ‘B,’ half your college options disappear. He wasn’t going to do that.”

  “So you saw him a lot, still?”

  “Once a week, at least. He’d come for Sunday service and stay for lunch. Every week. We were very, very close.”

  “So you’d know about his social life. Did he talk about that? I know he lived alone . . .”

  Mooney dragged himself back to upright, eager to talk about Michael in spite of himself. “He’d pretty much given up on dating. He was married twice, you know, and neither one worked out. I think this was the biggest disappointment in his life, especially after the wonderful life we all had while he was growing up. Me and Margaret, our marriage, was his model I’m sure. When he didn’t succeed in either of his, I think . . . This sounds a little strange, but I think it broke him in some way. Anyway, after the second marriage ended, he just kind of gave up on the idea of having his own family. Said if it was meant to happen, God would take care of it.”

  “How long ago were these marriages?”

  “Both when he was in his twenties. Both lasted a couple of years. And two fine women, too. Terri and Catherine. It seems they all just wanted different things. And of course, the artist’s life is never easy. He wasn’t making much money . . .” He sighed. “I think those failures, and the constant worrying about money, that’s a big part of what made him turn to teaching, which finally made him happy. I know he loved his work—the kids, the plays, all of it. It was his life now, maybe not the one he’d chosen when he was young, but the one God had chosen for him. It was good.”

  Hardy took a last look around the dim, ordered, cultured room. If there was anything in Mike Mooney’s life that had played a role in his death, Hardy was certain that Mooney’s father knew nothing a
bout it.

  Driving up the freeway with the top down, listening to the news to check for traffic problems and determine whether he should take the 101 or the 280 back home, Hardy suddenly leaned forward and turned up the volume.

  “Police in San Francisco tonight are looking into two separate shootings that occurred within fifteen minutes of each other earlier tonight in the Twin Peaks District. Both victims were shot in their homes, apparently at close range, and both died at the scenes. Police are unaware of any immediate connection between the victims, a middle-aged man and an elderly woman, but have not ruled out the possibility that both shootings may have been the work of one gunman. Neither shooting appears to have been gang-related. Police are advising residents in the area to be especially cautious opening their doors to strangers. So far, no witnesses have come forth with even a tentative description of the suspect in either shooting.”

  Hardy pushed the button on his dash and flipped over into CD mode. In a minute, he was listening to Nickel Creek again, the haunting and beautiful “Lighthouse’s Tale.” He was tired of hearing about murders in the city, although vaguely aware that it seemed to be turning into an unusually bloody month. As it was, he had his work cut out for him with Andrew, and for the moment he was out of ideas.

  Wu didn’t go home.

  She’d missed eight hours of billing the day before, and after Brandt dropped her off, she went to her office, and closed the door behind her. By six, she’d drafted the sixteen-page memo of points and authorities that Farrell had requested on the “notice rule,” a question of whether or not the statute of limitations had run on a client’s malpractice claims against his wife’s doctor, who in spite of several physical examinations had failed to properly diagnose her breast cancer until it had been too late. Wu got into it—it was a fairly sensitive analysis of when the statute began to run, at the time of the original non-diagnosis, or when the damage had been “noticed.” Plus, Farrell had given her twenty billable hours, and for a change, she thought, she could be efficient.

  Sometime afterward, they delivered her order of takeout Chinese and she ate her carton of lo mein at her desk while she studied the files of two conflicts cases she’d picked up—one computer identity theft and one meth sales, complicated by a concealed weapons charge—that were coming up for prelim. In neither of these cases did she entertain the slightest doubt that her clients had done what they’d been accused of.

  Nor did either of them deny it. She hadn’t even asked them yet—it would be unnecessary and even a little rude before the prelim to press them too hard about what had happened. Better they should hear the evidence and then decide what their respective stories would be. Her meth guy was looking at a third strike if he was convicted, and life in prison, so he had nothing to lose. The computer geek didn’t think the rules actually applied to him. He was tedious and whiny and kept complaining about how his court appearances were inconvenient, and why hadn’t Wu gotten the charges dismissed yet? He was a long way from being ready to face the music.

  Now it was ten o’clock and she was alone in the office. Yesterday’s hangover had become a dim memory and she pushed herself back from her desk, thinking that it was Friday night, she’d worked more than a full day, expiated her demons. Now it was time to party, to forget, to score and prove again how desirable she was, how charming, fun, worthy of love.

  Her eyes fell upon the picture of her father, framed on her desk. She wondered if he was seeing her now, watching from wherever he might be. Sitting back down, she pulled the picture near. To her knowledge, her father had never gone out and “partied” in his life. He did his job, he took care of his responsibilities, raised his difficult daughter all by himself.

  She stared at his likeness. Well, if he wasn’t going to like her anyway, she’d show him. She wouldn’t need him anymore, either. That was the greatest punishment she could inflict on him. She could be completely independent, financially secure on her own, emotionally untouchable. Alone.

  Alone.

  “Come on, Dad. Talk to me,” she said aloud.

  It wasn’t her father’s voice, but Jason Brandt’s that she heard. For a minute, I thought we had something going. I mean personally. She saw him tapping his chest. In here.

  She sat back and gathered herself, her eyes closed. When she opened them, her gaze fell upon the cardbox box containing the files in the Bartlett case. She reached down and pulled it over to her. Hard on the heels of the two cases she’d just been reviewing, she was suddenly struck by the qualitative difference between both of them and this one. Between all of her previous clients, in fact, and Andrew.

  She’d been completely blind to it at the beginning, assuming that her client was guilty, as all of her previous clients had always been. But now as she turned the pages in the files—the police reports, autopsies, photos of the crime scene, transcripts of interviews with Andrew and every witness in the case—she tried to take everything fresh, but this time with the prejudice that he might actually be innocent.

  Certainly Andrew himself hadn’t deviated from his original story; even when he’d been presented with new evidence that seemed to damn him, he always had an explanation that fit the facts. Andrew was an intelligent young man—“Perfect Killer” illustrated that clearly enough. His stubborn insistence on his own version of events, when he had no illusions about how bad it made him look, had a certain perverse authority. She found the quote from his short story:

  Would a smart guy like me admit to these damning lapses if I had done it? No, I’d lie about them, too. I’d make up a more consistent story. Think about it. Doesn’t that make more sense?

  And, in fact, she had to admit that it did.

  She pulled her yellow legal pad over in front of her and on the top of the first page wrote “First Criterion: The Minor’s Degree of Criminal Sophistication.” Lifting the rest of the pages of “Perfect Killer” out of its folder, she chewed on the end of her pen, trying to recall every instance where Andrew’s story, which, she reminded herself, was fiction, which he’d made up, pointed more to his innocence than his guilt.

  Tomorrow—Saturday—she’d be in here writing the motion to Judge Johnson on the impropriety of the rushed timing on the 707 hearing, giving notice they would be cutting him no slack. They had not yet truly begun, and were already laying the groundwork for an appeal. Maybe even a writ—get the Appellate Court involved before the 707 even took place.

  She’d already made appointments to talk to, recruit and perhaps even get time to prepare some reasonable number of the seven witnesses she and Hardy had preliminarily identified to testify on the various criteria. She had to nail down addresses, phone numbers, schedules.

  She desperately wanted to talk to Jason Brandt again—her hand had gone to the phone half a dozen times while she’d been working. Each time she’d drawn it back. But she felt she had to apologize. She had to let him know how she really felt about all of her mistakes, the seemingly endless series of them. She wanted to tell him that she was beginning to get some understanding of what had been driving her. The ghosts that had haunted her. Her hand went to the phone again. If he answered, they’d just talk. It wouldn’t be about Andrew.

  She pushed the numbers, heard the ringing, got his machine. Of course. It was Friday night. Of course he was out. She hung up before the message ended, sighed and opened another folder.

  It was going to be a long weekend.

  21

  On Saturday morning, alone in the house, Hardy showered, dressed in jeans and a blue workshirt and went downstairs to the kitchen. He poured himself a mug of coffee and took the first essential sip. Lifting his eight-pound black cast-iron pan from where it hung from the hole in its handle on a marlin hook, he put it over a high gas flame on the stove. They were out of eggs—he’d used them all up with Amy the other night—and this slowed him down for a second, but he hadn’t eaten dinner last night at all and was famished. So he cut a half inch of butter, threw it in the pan, let it start to melt.


  With an English muffin going in the toaster, he opened the refrigerator, found some luncheon ham and cut it up with a can of new potatoes, half an onion and a red pepper. After it had browned up a little, he added a tablespoonful of flour and a bouillon cube, and stirred it all together into a dark paste, into which he then poured a coffee mug full of water and stirred again. After it had thickened up, he tasted it, added Worcestershire and Tabasco, stirred again, and turned down the heat while he went to get the paper.

  Poured over the muffin halves, he figured his breakfast was at least as good as most of the specials at Lou the Greek’s. Maybe he’d even type up the recipe, drop it by there. Chui would serve it over rice instead of English muffins, and probably use soy sauce instead of Worcestershire for the gravy, but it would be cheap to make and, at least for Hardy this morning, it was satisfying enough. He could call it “Hearty Bowl,” a pun. Abe would love it.

  The two homicides last night made the front page. The coincidences they’d mentioned on the radio had blossomed into a tentative theory—it had been the same shooter. They’d recovered 9mm slugs from both scenes and police were running ballistics to see if they came from the same weapon. But in both cases, there appeared to have been no sign of forced entry. The woman, Edith Montrose, was seventy-two years old, and lived alone on Belvedere Street, while the man, Philip, the fifty-five-year-old owner of Wong’s Fine Produce, lived in a duplex on Twin Peaks Boulevard with his wife, Mae Li. The article noted that the two murder scenes were less than four blocks apart. There were other similarities as well: both victims were shot at very close range, in the chest. Nothing was apparently stolen from either domicile.