“So what are you saying. These were all this Executioner?”
“That’s the working theory. In any event, you get four shots in high-density areas and nobody hears anything, something’s a little funny.”
Hardy didn’t really agree. It was a noisy city, and people were so inured to near-constant aural assault that he thought a gunshot could easily go unremarked. Nevertheless, though he wasn’t ready to mention it to Abe yet, when the time came he might be tempted to call his friend to the stand as a witness in the Andrew Bartlett matter, where the actual sound of the gunshots was the proverbial dog that barked in the nighttime.
Another alternative theory presenting itself, another ball in the air.
But something entirely different struck him. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Did you say Boscacci? What’s this got to do with him? You think this guy shot him, too?”
“I don’t know,” Glitsky said. “But it is tantalizing, don’t you think?”
“That they all might be connected? Sure. But you’ve got to admit, it’s not much to go on—something people didn’t hear, especially a shot, which most people think is a backfire if it registers at all. I’ll bet most of ’em didn’t hear tinkling sounds either, and that doesn’t mean Tinker Bell did it.”
“You sound like Treya.”
“There are worse people to sound like.”
“Granted. But it’s not all fairy dust. I called down to the lab again, and asked them to physically check Allan’s slug. The tech couldn’t get a ballistics match with the Twin Peaks slugs—they were too deformed—but he did get to eyeball identical scuff marks on rounds of identical caliber. He couldn’t swear to it in court, maybe, but his bet is it’s the same gun, silenced.”
“Maybe,” Hardy said, “though if he couldn’t swear to it in court, which last time I checked was where we had to do these things . . .” But he didn’t mean to bust Abe’s chops. “Anyway, it does sound like you’re getting somewhere,” he said, “but if you’d told me you’d found something with the other victims about that jury the Cary woman sat on, maybe Allan was the prosecutor on the same case, then I’m thinking you might—”
“That’s it!” Glitsky’s voice crackled with a rare enthusiasm. “What I forgot. Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” Hardy said, but he was talking to a dial tone.
28
Though it had suddenly taken on a much higher profile, Hardy’s professional life wasn’t all, or even mostly, Andrew Bartlett. First thing Tuesday morning, he had another appointment with Clarence Jackman, so he didn’t even check in at the office, but drove directly to the Hall of Justice, parked in the All-Day where Boscacci had been shot, and was talking to the DA at 8:30 sharp.
The issue they were discussing was a theory called “provocative act murder,” where the person charged with the crime had not killed the victim. Instead, the theory went, the person charged had done something so “inherently likely to cause a violent response” that they were legally responsible for the murder.
There were two classic examples. The first was when somebody goes in to rob a liquor store, pulls a gun on the proprietor, and the proprietor pulls his own weapon out from behind the counter and shoots, missing the robber but accidentally killing a bystander. The proprietor in this case is completely blameless, where the robber might be charged with provocative act murder. The second example is a scenario where two drug dealers get in a shoot-out, and one of them grabs an innocent person, using that person as a human shield, who is then killed by a shot from the other drug dealer’s gun. In this case, while the second drug dealer might be guilty of murder, too, the person who grabbed the human shield in the first place, though he didn’t fire the lethal shot, could be charged in the death.
In the case Hardy was arguing, his client was Leila Madison, the mother of a fourteen-year-old boy named Jamahl Madison, who’d gone with a gang of four of his homies to rob the apartment of one of their neighbors. Hardy had gotten connected to Leila because she was the cleaning lady of another of his clients. Besides Jamahl, she had three other children under the age of ten, all of whom lived with her own mother in Bayside. It was a horrible, all-too-common situation, now aggravated by Jackman’s initial decision to charge Jamahl as an adult with the provocative act murder of his friend Damon. Jamahl had not shot Damon. In fact, the apartment owner, while the gang was fleeing from the robbery, had taken some shots at all of them, and had wounded Jamahl and killed Damon.
And again, as had been his habit lately, Hardy wasn’t planning to take the case to trial. He was facilitating. Though his heart didn’t go out to poor Jamahl, it did to the boy’s mother, and he’d taken five hundred dollars, donated by Leila’s boss, to see if he could persuade Jackman that in this case, provocative act murder wasn’t the right call.
“. . . if he were even, say, seventeen, Clarence. But the boy’s only fourteen. He’s gotten his own stupid ass shot already and lost his best friend. I’ve got to believe that’s going to make an impression that maybe it’s not a good idea to rob people.”
Jackman, behind his desk, seemed to be enjoying the exchange. “So would thirty or forty in the can, Diz. Time he gets out, I’ll bet he’s lost his taste for it entirely.” He spread his hands on his desk. “My question to you is do you honestly think he’s going to change, ever?”
Hardy shook his head. “You ever meet a kid that didn’t, Clarence? Age fourteen to forever. He might. He gets the right counselors at YGC, somebody catches a spark with him, he comes out in a few years and he’s a stand-up human being. But the real question, the legal question, is the provocative act.”
Jackman ran a finger under his shirt collar. Now, his deep voice an almost inaudible rumble, he chuckled. “If you break into somebody’s home, you forfeit quite a few of your inalienable rights.”
“Granted. But Mr. Parensich”—the robbery victim who’d actually shot Damon and Jamahl—“was never really in danger. The boys didn’t even have guns. They didn’t even know he was home.”
“That’s what they say, so it’s just more bad luck for them. And let’s remember, there were five of them.” He held up his hand. “Cinco. This is a substantial amount of gang throw-weight, and you know it. Even if this guy was only fourteen. I believe Mr. Parensich felt legitimately threatened.”
“I don’t doubt it, but these kids didn’t act up that much. They were already fleeing when Parensich fired at them. Self-defense or not, they’re the ones that took the shots. Let’s call it square.”
“If you’re suggesting it, let me just say that no way am I going to charge Parensich,” Jackman said. “Somebody’s got to stand up for the victims in these situations.”
Hardy actually broke a grin. “That’s a lovely campaign moment, Clarence, but you can’t say that running away is inherently likely to cause a violent response, and that’s what the boys were doing, hightailing it.” Hardy paused, considered, concluded. “Parensich’s response was legal, but unnecessary, so the murder can’t go under provocative act. That’s all there is to it.”
Jackman had been listening carefully, rolling a pencil under a finger on his desk. “So how do I get the message out to these people, Diz? You break into some guy’s house, you don’t understand somebody’s likely to get hurt? The tragedy here isn’t your boy and his mother, but Damon, who was also fourteen and who won’t be getting any older. If these dumb fuck kids, pardon me, wouldn’t have decided to knock over Parensich, Damon’s still walking around. It’s such a goddamn waste.”
“I hear you, Clarence. I really do. But you’re punishing Jamahl in any event. He’s going to YA on the robbery. That’s appropriate. But you won’t win hearts or minds by a reach of a charge like this. You’ll just seem unfair and vindictive. Jamahl’s only fourteen, Clarence. As you say, he’s still walking around, so he’s still got a chance. Slim, but real. You don’t want to take that away from him on this. And,” Hardy was getting to the bottom line, “you and I both know there’s no way you’ll get any
jury in this town to convict him, so why waste the time? You’re just pissed off.”
“I am pissed off.”
“That’s fine. But take it out on somebody’s who’s earned it. This one just ain’t right, and you know it.” Hardy found himself surprised that he’d used these words. He hadn’t thought that way in quite some time.
Jackman rolled the pencil some more. By all indications, he was making his decision on Jamahl, but when he finally spoke, it wasn’t about that. “I hear through the grapevine that you’re working with your associate on Bartlett. That the hearing is this morning, if I’m not mistaken.”
“That’s right. It should start in about an hour.”
“I’m taking your presence on the team to mean that some kind of reason is going to prevail up there.”
“Well, we’re playing the cards we got dealt, Clarence, if that’s what you mean. Amy should never have tried to make the deal with Allan, that goes without question. But not because she didn’t deliver.”
“No, then why not?”
“Because I’m more than halfway to convinced he’s not guilty.”
The quiet voice took on an ominous tone. “You think there was a rush to judgment out of this office? Do you think we weren’t fair? That we don’t have a case? Your own associate was going to plead him guilty less than a week ago. What’s changed? Do you have new evidence?”
“No, sir. Not really. Maybe a new approach. That’s all.”
“Well.” Jackman, frowning now, picked up the pencil and tapped the table with its eraser. “I’ll let you know my decision on Jamahl, then. When I make it.” He looked at his watch. “You don’t want to be late for court.”
It was a dismissal.
When the meeting ended, Hardy came out into the reception room by Treya Glitsky’s desk. “So how’d it go?” she asked.
“The reviews aren’t all in yet.” But Hardy’s face indicated that when they came, they wouldn’t be all good, and Treya knew better than to push. His pager had vibrated three times while he’d been speaking with Jackman, and all the calls had come from his office, and now he asked, “Could I borrow your phone for one minute? Local.”
“One? One,” she said. Then, after she’d made sure the door to Jackman’s office was closed, she added, “Abe called. He asks if you get a chance, stop up.”
Hardy was punching numbers, nodded abstractedly. “He called me? How’d he know I was here?”
“He didn’t. He didn’t call you. He called me since I’m his devoted wife and I work here. I told him you were in with his nibs. He’s going to want to talk about . . .”
“Excuse me, one sec.” Hardy was holding a finger up, stopping her. He spoke into the phone. “Phyllis, Diz. You don’t have to call me three times. You leave the number once, I’ll call back, promise.” He listened. “Who? Okay. Yes, I know her. I got it. All right, then. I’ll be going straight out there. Right. Right. That means I won’t stop at the office first. After that I’m up at YGC with Amy. Right, okay. That’s it. Thanks.” Hanging up, he turned to Treya. “I love that woman,” he said. “She makes the rest of humanity look so good by comparison. Was Abe important?”
“Always,” she said, then lowered her voice. “But I think he just wants to pick your brain on this silencer thing with Allan and the others.”
“The others.” Hardy leaned over her desk. “You know I think he’s a brilliant and fascinating guy, but this is just spinning his wheels until he gets something real.”
“That’s what I told him,” she said. “He just wants to be back in homicide, and this gives him an excuse. He sent out a couple of inspectors this morning to ask relatives of the Twin Peaks people—if there are any—if either of them had ever served on a murder jury. They weren’t too enthusiastic, the inspectors.”
“Wait’ll he sends them downstairs to Records to look up all of Allan’s cases over the past twenty years. That’ll really juice ’em up.”
At this moment, Anna Salarco was, by any of Hardy’s standards, more important than Glitsky. So, for that matter, was the hearing, which would start now before he arrived. But he couldn’t ignore the summons from Anna, who had called his office. Wu and he had discussed strategy late yesterday afternoon, and he had no reason to believe she couldn’t handle it well herself. But he did ask Treya to call Abe back and send his regrets.
Twenty-five minutes later he was back in the Salarcos’ bright yellow kitchen. Carla was in her playpen watching Barney on television. Clearly nervous, her head darting this way and that, her hands pushing her hair around, Anna offered him a seat at the kitchen table. He took out his tape recorder, held it up and got a nod from her, and put it on the table between them. She sat where she could keep an eye both on her baby and on the front door. Reading the signs, Hardy asked her if her husband knew that she’d called him.
“No, but I had to. I think about it all the night. The boy. Andrew. The one Juan pick out of the lineup.” She threw a look at the door, took a breath, came back to him. “I was there, too. At the lineup. With Juan. But afterward, they only talk to him.”
“Because he’d seen Andrew and he’d told them that he could identify him?”
“Sí. But they did not . . .” She snapped her fingers, cast her eyes about the room, searching for the right word. “No sais.” Then: “They did not make it different, the times Juan saw him, like you did.”
“Differentiate,” Hardy said.
“Sí. Differentiate. Between when he went down first and when he came back later, after. Or the other one.”
“The one you saw? Outside in front?”
“Sí. I don’t know what . . . how . . . if Juan saw something that time.” She’d gripped her hands, intertwining her fingers in her lap, and now she turned them over on themselves. “But I went over it last night a hundred times, what I remembered, and it was as you say, as Juan said when he . . . described how we went to the window. Me in front of him.”
“You’re doing fine,” Hardy said. “I’m listening. It’s all right.”
She gave him a darting, empty smile, turned her head toward the door again.
“You were at the window . . .”
“Sí. I look out, and I am angry, too, at waking up the baby. I am slapping, you know, at the window. This is why the boy turn around. He look up at me and then he’s gone, running.”
“And that man, that time, was it Andrew?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I don’t say Juan is not telling the truth. Maybe he saw different. Maybe I . . . It was too far and I don’t see everything just perfect.”
“All right. Maybe all that. Listen, Anna. No one’s going to accuse Juan of anything because of what you tell me now. It could have been an honest mistake. He’d already seen Andrew twice that night, so who else could it have been? Right? And when was the lineup? A month later? Six weeks?”
“Sí. Something like that much. But they bring out the boys, and Juan and I are both there, you know, watching from back in the dark. They keep us apart and we’re not supposed to talk, you know. They give us a card and we make an ‘X’ if we know somebody. But I see nobody I know, and later I find out Juan said it was number two. He knows. I tell him I don’t think this is who I saw from the window.”
“It was not Andrew?”
Shaking her head from side to side, she said, “No. Not if he was in that lineup.” Then, with the confession out, she stopped all the frenetic movement. Her shoulders settled almost imperceptibly. “Juan, he takes my arm and asks me do I know what am I saying. He tells me that there is no doubt. This is who he saw.”
“He did,” Hardy said. “That’s who he did see. Just not that one time.”
“Sí. But he is . . . angry at me. Very angry. Do I think he does not know who he saw? Don’t I know the police will help us with la migra if we help them?”
“They can’t,” Hardy said. “They won’t.”
“I think that, too. But Juan still hopes, you know. If we go to the trial and he says it wa
s Andrew . . .” She trailed off. “Anyway, I don’t fight him anymore.” Her head was down, but she raised her eyes to him. “Not until yesterday. When I understand.”
29
By the time Hardy arrived at the YGC at 10:15 and got himself admitted to the courtroom and then the defense table in the bullpen, all under the disapproving eyes of Judge Johnson, they appeared to have cleared all the motions, including the continuance request, and now were apparently in the middle of what Hardy supposed was their first witness.
But before they could get back to that, Johnson took off his glasses and spoke up. “For the record, the court notes the arrival of . . . ?”
Hardy stood. “I’m sorry I’m late, your honor. Dismas Hardy, second chair for the minor.”
Johnson’s lips went tight, his eyes narrowed. “All right, Mr. Hardy. Would you care to approach the bench, please? Ms. Wu? You, too.”
This was unusual, but when the judge called you up, you went.
“Yes, your honor?”
Johnson held his glasses in one hand, and it was shaking. His eyes were cold pools of glacier water. He spoke with a crisp clarity, brooking no misunderstanding. “I gathered from your various motions and witness list yesterday that you intended to make this hearing more of a protracted proceeding than I had intended to countenance in this particular case. Now I see a second lawyer at Mr. Bartlett’s table. I don’t often see two attorneys for one juvenile defendant in the seven-oh-seven. I wanted to give you both fair warning that I’m not going to tolerate any delaying tactics or tag-team mumbo jumbo from either of you. I’ll hear from one lawyer per witness—either one of you, but only one. If your witnesses don’t speak to particular criteria, I will dismiss them. If you waste this court’s time, I will cut you off. Is that clear?”
The Dismas Hardy Novels Page 174
