Hardy 10 - Second Chair, The

by John Lescroart

  The smile faded. "Okay. So what's she going to do? Amy?"

  "First thing, I had her go down to Boscacci and apologize in person. Tell him the truth, which is that the kid decided on his own not to admit."

  Farrell sat back and crossed a leg. "And why do you think he did that?"

  Hardy gave it a minute. "He's young. Eight years sounds like the rest of his life. But for now, I guess he'd rather take bad odds at pulling life than no odds at eight years." He sighed. "He's going to find out."

  * * * * *

  Inspector Sergeant Pat Belou stepped out of the elevator on the fourth floor of the Hall of Justice. She had ridden up from the lobby with her partner Lincoln Russell, a well-dressed mid-thirties black inspector. Also in the small enclosed elevator had been about ten other citizens, at least one of whom badly needed a shower, some new clothes, a toothbrush, maybe industrial disinfectant and certainly deodorant. Lots of deodorant.

  "That was the longest elevator ride I've ever taken," Belou said when the door closed behind her. "We ought to arrest that guy as a health hazard."

  "Not till he kills somebody," Russell said. "We're homicide. He's got to kill somebody first. Those are the rules."

  "Well, he almost killed me. That ought to count. Anybody goes with him all the way to the top, their life's in danger."

  "Maybe we catch him on the way down," Russell said.

  Belou blew out through her mouth, waving the air in front of her nose. She was a thirty-year-old, tall and rangy woman with an outdoorsy look, a bit of a heavy jaw, some old, faded acne scars on her face. But her large mouth smiled easily, she laughed as though she meant it, and her shoulder-length hair, a shade lighter than dirty blond and with a perennially windblown look, set off lovely blue eyes.

  The inspectors turned into the hallway, and Belou stopped suddenly, hit her partner on the arm. "Glitsky," she said. "Good a time as any."

  Russell said he'd see her in the homicide detail, and she turned around and came back to the double doors by the elevator lobby that led to the admin offices. She was just asking the receptionist at the outside desk if she could have a word with the deputy chief when the man himself appeared from somewhere in the back. He wore a deep frown and was accompanied by a sergeant in uniform, Paganucci by his name tag.

  She spoke right up. "Sir? Sergeant Belou. Homicide."

  Glitsky, obvious frazzled, came to a full stop. "I'm running to a meeting," he told her. "If you'd like to leave a message with Melissa here, I'll get back to you as soon as I can."

  "Yes, sir. But this is short. Ted Reed."

  "Ted Reed?"

  "Elizabeth Cary's brother. Lake Elsinore."

  "What about him?"

  "He's been in custody on an arson charge down in Escondido for most of the last month. The public defender down there told me he must have decided he liked the food in jail, didn't want to waste his money on bail. His trial's in a couple of months. Bottom line is he didn't kill his sister."

  Glitsky nodded. Something else was distracting him, but he said, "Okay. Thanks. Good job."

  Then, to Melissa: "I'm at the Young Community Developers ribbon cutting out on Van Ness. I won't talk to any reporters before the next scheduled press conference. Tony." He turned to the sergeant who accompanied him. "How fast can we get there? We're late already."

  "Lights and sirens, five, six minutes."

  "If they call," Glitsky told Melissa, "tell them we're on the way."

  Then they were gone, jogging through the elevator lobby, hitting the stairs at a run.

  Behind the reception desk, Melissa looked up at Belou, shook her head in commiseration. "Man don't belong doing this. Gonna make hisself sick." The phone rang and she picked it up, said without ceremony that the deputy chief wasn't available, hung up. She smiled at Belou, pointed at the telephone. "One of the reporters he didn't want to talk to. They eatin' him up."

  "What about?"

  "This LeShawn Brodie thing. You following that?"

  "The Greyhound guy?"

  "That's him, sugar."

  "What about him?"

  "So you ain't heard? He was headin' back this way, but they pulled him over up in Colfax. Now he's got hisself twenty hostages in some diner up there, already killed two of 'em." She pointed to the phone. "Them reporters. They wantin' his hide."

  * * * * *

  Hardy asked Phyllis to hold his calls. He locked his door, took off his shoes, loosened his tie and lay down on one of his couches. He'd had a good breakfast with the family and wasn't remotely hungry, and he decided he would start to break the bottle-of-wine-with-lunch habit by skipping lunch entirely. Eliminate the temptation.

  He fell asleep instantly, and awoke nearly three hours later. Alone in his office, he threw water on his face, brewed a cup of espresso and drank it down as soon as it didn't scald.

  Replaying Frannie's monologue from last night in his mind, he realized that all of his friends involved in the gunfight had been wrestling with their long-term reactions and demons ever since. He shouldn't have been surprised that he had his own issues, and that he'd been ignoring them as best he could. But from today on, he resolved that things were going to change. It was just a matter of will, and that had always been one of his strengths.

  But today, after he'd finished his coffee, he got up to pour himself another cup and noticed the bottle of Rémy Martin in his bar. Without agonizing about it too much, he poured a shot into his cup and added coffee. He'd never entertained the thought that he intended to quit drinking altogether, and after all he'd not had any wine for lunch. He deserved that shot as a reward for his earlier abstinence, and one shot wasn't going to affect him adversely in any event. It would just take a little of the edge off.

  Raising the cup to his mouth, though, he hesitated.

  Maybe Frannie's point last night was that his normal response to conflict or inner turmoil lately had been to round off the edges. He was literally dulled, and in that state, nothing was really that serious. You could take the easiest course, ride it out, have a few drinks, and usually things tended to work out acceptably. You couldn't spend your whole life worrying about the what ifs, the small stuff. And that was counterproductive, too. At least as debilitating as drinking.

  In fact, seen in that light, drinking had enabled him to function better. He came to work every day, drummed up mega-business with whoever could pay his fees, used his natural talent for schmoozing. He was good with people, that was all. And with a bit of a load on, even more charming.

  Like Wu. Charming.

  The thought stopped him cold.

  Like Wu. Screwing up. Hiding behind that old glib shit. Ultimately failing those who might be counting on you.

  Leaving the cup untouched on the counter, he instead walked over to his dart area, opened the cabinets and pulled the three tungsten customs from the board. It wasn't so long ago that he used to throw his darts to clear his mind as a relaxation technique, and now he got to the line in the floor, turned and threw. Threw again. Again. One round.

  Before he moved forward to pull the round from the board, he went over to the counter, picked up the coffee cup and poured it down the sink.

  * * * * *

  It was nearly four o'clock by the time he knocked on Gina Roake's door.

  She had the corner office, an altogether different work space than Hardy's. There were a few stuffed chairs and a sofa, an old wooden coffee table, a computer table and chair, but no formal desk to speak of. Instead of hardwood floors, Gina went with wall-to-wall carpet, a shade darker than champagne. Cheaply framed posters of old movies—Giant, Casablanca, Gone With the Wind, Citizen Kane— decorated the one big wall. The other, by the door, mostly held her law books, although there was one shelf of David Freeman memorabilia— an empty bottle of La Grande Dame champagne (from the day he'd proposed to her); a picture of the two of them outside on the deck at the Alta Mira in Sausalito, the bay shimmering in the background; a hand-blown blue and red glass perfume bottle; some erotic i
f not frankly obscene porcelains from Chinatown; a clean ashtray with an unlit cigar and a book of matches from the Crown Room at the Fairmont. Then there were the windows, six of them to Hardy's two. In the afternoon, now, the light suffused the room with a golden glow.

  He stopped just inside, carefully closed the door behind him. "You busy?"

  She was at the computer, work showing on the screen. "I decided you were at least a little bit right. If I'm going to have my name on the door, I should pull some of the weight."

  He drew around one of the folding chairs, flipped it open and sat on it. "That's funny, I decided I was at least mostly wrong. The firm's making a fortune. I was a horse's ass. Am." He gestured vaguely around the room. "If you don't want to work, you've earned the right not to." He waited a moment. "So how are you?"

  She turned to face him. Thought a moment. "I'm all right. I think if I exercised any more, I'd self-destruct. Which is maybe what I was trying to do. I'm damn sure already the strongest woman my age I know, if any man has the guts to want to find out." But the smile faded. "But it wasn't physical strength, though, after all, was it? It was bullets."

  "It was bullets," Hardy agreed.

  A silence ensued. In only a few seconds, Gina's face tracked through several variations on the themes of grief, revenge and regret. Last year she'd killed a man, and the experience had scarred her. "So what brings you down to this neck of the woods? If it was just your apology— unnecessary, but nice."

  "It wasn't just that. It's Amy."

  He gave Gina a brief recap of the events leading up to this morning's fiasco in juvenile court, and by the time he finished, Gina had turned and was facing him, her face set with worry. "She made the deal before she had the client's consent?"

  "Right." Then he added, "It's possible she thought he had given it."

  "How's that? Did she have him sign a statement?"

  "I don't think so, no. She called me last night and said it was locked up. Solid."

  "But didn't get his John Hancock? And then he went sideways?"

  "Last minute, in the courtroom." Hardy shrugged. "It happens."

  "Not as often as you might think if you do it right. So. What do you want me to do?"

  A pause. "For Amy? Nothing. For me, I could use some guidance. I'm the managing partner, and I've managed this whole thing wrong up until now. I knew her client hadn't signed off. I kept convincing myself that I should trust her judgment that he'd come around. That was irresponsible enough, but it was more than that, really."

  Roake cocked her head. "What, though, exactly?"

  Hardy took a minute deciding what he should say. "You may remember, Amy's father died a few months ago. Since then she's been . . . distracted. And her work's been suffering, today's problem being the best of several good examples." Again, he paused. "I can't help but feel that a lot of where this has gotten to is my fault. I should have stepped in at the git-go, and three or four other stops along the way. But the point is, she's been playing fast and loose with this boy's life and it probably feels relatively okay to her because she's playing fast and loose with her own."

  Roake leaned back into her chair, let out a heavy breath. "People are going to do what they're going to do, Diz. Do you think she's competent? Legally?"

  "I don't know. She's got a good mind. But the only bright spot right now, if you want to call it that, is that she's somehow conned the parents, who are paying the bills, that this has been her plan all along, to pretend to go along with the deal to get Andrew declared a juvenile."

  "Which, I take it, isn't true?"

  "Right."

  "So she's still lying to her clients?"

  Hardy tried a weak grin. " 'Spinning' is the preferred term of art, I believe. But it's going to unravel fast enough, you watch. Boscacci's going to demand a seven-oh-seven before she knows what hit her. And if she loses there, which is a good bet because not only does she have the burden of proof, but the judge already hates her, then her boy's looking at adult murder with specials." Hardy found a chair and sat. "I'm thinking I have to step in, take her off it. That would mitigate the personal issues with Boscacci and the judge anyway. Although the paying customers currently think Amy is a genius. If I yank her, they quit. Maybe she quits, too. Did I mention the fees here? It's going to go adult murder, and that's six figures, high profile. We don't want to lose it."

  Roake crossed her arms over her chest, whirled halfway around in her chair, and stared out toward one of the windows. Finally: "If memory serves, the seven-oh-seven's not about evidence, is it? It's only a question of whether the child can be rehabilitated in the juvenile system or should be punished in the adult. Isn't that about right?"

  Hardy nodded.

  "Okay, then. And how is Andrew's record otherwise?"

  "Nothing to speak of. One joyride, community service and a fine. Expunged."

  "Well, then." Roake considered a moment. "In that case, she might have a shot. The court can't say that the boy's already a hardened criminal and needs to spend the rest of his life locked away. She might pull it off."

  "Maybe." Hardy had his doubts. He knew perhaps better than Roake that the last of the five criteria in determining whether a defendant was legally a juvenile or an adult was the gravity of the offense, and there was nothing more serious than murder. On that alone, Hardy thought, the 707 hearing was doomed to failure.

  He ran a hand down his cheek. "I don't want to step on her, Gina, or God knows, fire her. But her focus has been off on this since the beginning, and now, especially after she reneged on Boscacci, he's going to want to take her down." He sat back, crossed his arms in a pensive mode, looked from window to window around the room. Suddenly, he came back to Roake, his eyes bright with an idea. "How about if I tell her I'd like to sit second chair?"

  Roake gave it some thought. "She might resent that, too. She might even quit. And your hours on top of hers? Would the clients go for that?"

  "I don't care about my hours," Hardy said. "I wouldn't charge for them. Long term, getting Amy straight and on track is worth more to the firm than I'd bill, don't you think?"

  Roake smiled, spoke gently. "You don't have to ask me, but that doesn't sound like the managing partner I know and love. He's been pretty tough on billing lately, even with some of our partners."

  "Touché," Hardy said, smiling.

  But Roake was back to business. "She still might quit, though. Take it as a vote of no-confidence."

  "Except that she knows she's screwed up. I think it might be more likely, especially with the other pressures she's feeling, that she'll be grateful she's not fired."

  Roake, warming to the idea, was nodding. "Okay. You could certainly say you've got every right as managing partner to demand a closer accountability. You can't let another mistake happen on your watch. What's she going to say? No?"

  "She could. She might."

  But Roake shook her head. "Sure, but I don't think so. I think she'll thank you for offering. So, assuming she'd be okay with it, how would you handle it logistically?"

  Hardy came forward, suddenly pumped up at the prospect. "The way I see it, I get up to speed on the evidence while she's arguing the rehab criteria at the seven-oh-seven. That way, even if we lose at the hearing, we're stronger for the adult trial. Plus, between you and me, if her personal problems become too much for her, I'm already on board. The clients now know me. It's good insurance." He dropped his head for a moment, stunned at how right this decision felt.

  Frannie's message the night before had struck a reverberant chord. He needed something to reconnect himself with who he was— an officer of the court, a justice freak, a guardian of the law. What he needed for his own good was a pure case, where you defended your client because the presumption was innocence. If the prosecution couldn't prove otherwise, couldn't prevail against a spirited defense, the client walked.

  This was neither cynical nor manipulative— it was the essence of the system. And though Hardy had lost some faith, a great deal of fa
ith, in the mechanics, in the way it sometimes played out in the real world, suddenly it was crystal clear that this imperfect system, if he still believed in anything, was what he believed in. More, it was an opportunity for his own redemption that he couldn't let pass.

  He hadn't taken a murder case in over three years. They were too time-consuming, too physically grueling, too emotionally demanding. They played hell with his home life.

  There was better money to be made quicker and more fun to be had cutting deals. You could skim along the top of things and not worry too much— hell, not worry at all. You laughed until your face hurt, and you'd be damned if you'd ever have to internalize any of your clients' problems. You just fixed their messes.

  And yet at some level, Hardy never lost his awareness that the fun was about as ephemeral and nourishing as cotton candy, and often left a worse aftertaste. And the money often felt dirty.

  He might not have wanted to face it squarely, but once he did, it wasn't any mystery to him why he'd been drinking too much. He could see where it would all lead if he continued. The picture wasn't pretty. No, more. It was so ugly that, thank God, it had made Frannie cry.

  Maybe it was time to engage again, to let himself care.

  He lifted his head, broke a weary half grin. "So. Second chair? You think?"

  Roake nodded. "It's got your name on it."

  * * * * *

  Amy Wu hadn't been able to face the idea of going back into the Sutter Street office and facing Dismas Hardy and her other colleagues again, not after the brutal dressing-down she'd taken at the hands of Allan Boscacci, who'd first kept her waiting for almost two hours, then informed her that he had already filed a motion for a 707 hearing on the Bartlett matter, to have the boy declared an adult.

  He hoped she realized what she'd done, and wanted her to be under no illusion— she wasn't getting away with it. Oh, and by the way, if she ever wanted to communicate with him about any case ever again, she should do it in writing, signed by her, no "dictated, not read" bullshit. And he didn't mean e-mail. And she would find this to be the policy for every assistant district attorney in his office.