The Hearing

by John Lescroart

  Jackman had his fingers intertwined on the desk. He was rolling his thumbs ponderously. Something was going on in his brain, though his face didn't show it. 'Well,' he said with resignation, 'your good work hasn't gone unnoticed.' He paused again, offered an avuncular smile. 'Let's call it a soft six weeks, shall we? If you need a little extra time, please come up and see me.'

  'I will,' she said.

  The discussion was over, though they both sat unmoving for a long moment. Then, as though on cue, they both nodded, and Treya stood. She said 'Thank you' without inflection and headed for the door.

  As she walked down the hallway back to her cubicle, the knife kept turning in her stomach. Whatever sympathetic spin Jackman might put on it, she knew the reality behind his words – she had just been politely, regretfully, fired if she couldn't find another attorney in the firm who'd want to use her.

  Six soft weeks.

  She knew that Jackman meant he might give her seven weeks, maybe as many as nine if he let her continue to work through her two weeks' notice.

  My God, she was thinking, what am I going to do?

  Six weeks!

  She knew that there was little chance that she would get anywhere near full utilization in that amount of time. First, her fellow paralegals were under the same pressure as she was to keep working. Non-attorney staff at Rand and Jackman would 'bank' their overtime so that they could apply the hours to their utilization during slack periods -though technically illegal in California, the firm winked at the common practice. Too many weeks of low utilization -the exact number was unknown but low – you were gone. And everyone at the firm knew it.

  Beyond that Treya was aware that her special relationship with Elaine had been a source of jealousy among her peers. She had done nothing purposeful to make this happen. She was unfailingly polite and friendly. She bent over backwards to tell the truth. But there was no denying that she enjoyed a slightly exalted status that some of the other paralegals resented. A few lawyers might have harbored even more negative thoughts – Treya was a mere paralegal who on some level must have thought she was equal to someone who'd passed the bar. A ridiculous notion if ever there was one.

  No one was going to throw her a bone, and several people she could mention might even be glad to see her laid low.

  So unless a miracle occurred, and she had long since stopped counting on them, she was going to be unemployed before springtime. She couldn't let that happen, not to herself and not to Raney. She had to whip her resume into shape, get out there at lunchtime and start interviewing.

  If only Elaine… oh, poor Elaine…

  Blinking back the unexpected new flash flood of tears, Treya hurried the last few steps to her cubicle. She would be damned if she'd let anyone see her crying. If she could just make it back to the safety of her workstation, she could get herself back under control.

  These sudden attacks of crying had to stop. Before the beginning of this week, Treya couldn't remember the last time she had cried. It must have been just after Tom's death, when Raney was two. Twelve years, so long ago.

  Tom.

  She couldn't let herself think about him, not now, about what they could have had if… It would all be so different now if it hadn't been for the stupid red light, the stupid truck…

  Her awful, awful luck…

  The floodgates threatened to open. Nearly bursting with the effort to hold back tears, she finally turned the corner into her cubicle.

  A hard-looking man was leaning against her desk, his arms crossed, impatience etched on his face. He had a hatchet nose and a scar through his lips. Treya Ghent?' he said brusquely, straightening up and holding out a badge. 'I'm Lieutenant Glitsky, homicide. I'd like to talk to you about Elaine Wager.'

  She collapsed into tears.

  'I thought you'd already arrested somebody.'

  Nearly ten minutes had passed, during which time Glitsky waited at the workstation, allowing Treya to go to the bathroom to regain her composure. Now she was back with him, her emotions clamped down. If anything, she exuded a kind of cold fury he'd seen before, which he interpreted as self-loathing and anger that she'd lost control.

  She sat at her desk and he'd pulled a chair around from someplace and straddled it backwards. So they were at about eye level in the small cubicle. 'We do have someone in custody, yes.'

  'So what does that have to do with me? Or with anything else that might have happened here?'

  More hostility. This woman, spooked by the police visit, shattered by a recent murder, didn't want to talk about it. It should just all go away.

  'You're right. It may have nothing to do with anybody or anything here,' he replied in his professional tone.

  'What could there be? It was some bum, wasn't it? She didn't know him.'

  Glitsky's lips tightened. 'We're trying to make sure of that.'

  'Didn't I read that he confessed?'

  'You may have.' The leak on that development hadn't made Glitsky's day, and his face showed it.

  'Well? That ought to settle that, don't you think?'

  Glitsky crossed his arms on the back of the chair and purposefully looked away. Bringing his eyes back to her, he waited yet another moment. Finally, when he thought she was about to begin squirming, he spoke quietly. 'It's my understanding that you and Elaine were close.'

  The question deflected some of the anger. Treya bit at her lower lip, then nodded. 'Yes.'

  'Then it would seem to me that you'd want to cooperate in any way you could with the investigation into her death.'

  'I do, but-'

  Glitsky cut her off. 'Sometimes people confess to things they didn't do.'

  'Did that happen here?'

  'No.' The lieutenant drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. 'But even with a righteous confession, we still need to collect all the evidence we can.'

  'Why?'

  ' Because when the killer gets a lawyer, which he will, he'll change his mind and plead not guilty.'

  'After he's confessed?'

  'It happens. In fact, it always happens. What has he got to lose?'

  Treya sat back in her chair, digesting this. 'Then what about the confession?'

  A grim smile. 'Oh, the argument will be that it was invalid. It was coerced somehow. Or the police beat it out of him. Or his memory was impaired. Maybe it was a dream, or he just mixed up what had happened.'

  'Mixed up that he killed somebody?'

  'Yeah. You'd think you'd remember something like that, but you'd be surprised how many people don't after saying they did.'

  Abe and Treya's eyes locked in some kind of shared understanding across the small space between them. Not for long, though. Both of them, realizing it, looked away. 'So,' Treya said, 'you need evidence. Of what?'

  This was difficult for Glitsky to explain, for the truth was that he was grasping at straws. It was bad enough that Elaine was dead, but to admit that she'd died in such a senseless attack was almost too much for Abe to bear. She couldn't have lived her interesting and committed life, done all she'd done, touched so many people, only to have it all wiped away in a completely random moment as though she were no more important than a bug.

  Although, of course, that's exactly what did happen. But with his own daughter?

  He couldn't fit it anywhere, couldn't live with it. At least until he knew more – about Elaine, about her killer, the intersection where some meaning could be attached to it.

  It was important. It was stupid and made no sense. He had to do it.

  Again, he met the woman's eyes. 'If, for example, Elaine worked at all with the Free Clinic or Legal Aid, if she had any professional contact with junkies…'

  'Then she might have met with the man?'

  Glitsky made a face. 'The point is, if Elaine volunteered with any of these people…'

  Treya was shaking her head. 'She did volunteer, do some pro bono work, but not on the streets. She considered those people lost for the most part. If they were going to get back, it was
going to have to be on their own. They weren't her issue.'

  'So what was?'

  'Students. People who were trying to do something with their lives. So she taught moot court at Hastings, for example. She didn't have much patience for professional victims – she always wanted to yell at people to not let themselves get in that habit.' Treya's eyes briefly flickered bright with a rogue memory. 'One of her great expressions was that there were only two kinds of people – victims and warriors.'

  'I like that,' Abe said. 'But maybe Cole Burgess hung out with some students.'

  'Law students? I don't think so.' Another shake of the head. 'I don't remember ever hearing the name.'

  'All right.'

  Treya bit at her lower lip again and Glitsky found himself watching her. The swollen, nearly pouting mouth.

  'When was the last time you saw her?'

  The question startled her. 'Why do you want to know that? You can't think I was…' She was staring, doe-eyed, in disbelief.

  'I don't think anything.' Glitsky hadn't meant to spook her. He softened his voice. 'I'm trying to start somewhere, get a time line of her last hours. It's really routine.'

  'Isn't that what the police always say when they suspect somebody? That it's routine?'

  Glitsky's mouth turned up a fraction of an inch, another humanizing touch. 'Actually, they do, you're right. But I'm not doing that now.'

  She sighed heavily. 'Sunday afternoon. Here.' At Glitsky's expression, she felt the need to explain and pressed on. 'I'm often in on weekends, and she was doing some special master work.'

  Glitsky nodded in understanding. This wasn't unusual. A special master was an attorney appointed by the court to help serve a search warrant on material that might be privileged – doctor's records, lawyer's files, psychiatrist's tapes – and deliver whatever was not privileged in the requested records to the court. If the person who had the records was uncooperative, the master would do the actual searching and separate out what lawfully could be seized from the private records of other clients and patients, whose right to privacy was therefore protected from the police.

  'And Elaine came back here when she was done with that?'

  'Yes.'

  'What time was that?'

  Treya's face showed her concentration. 'I'm not sure, exactly. It was just turning dark, so maybe five thirty. I was finishing up.'

  'And what did she come back here for?'

  'Just to leave me some files. Then she was going out for a meeting and then home.'

  Glitsky was leaning forward now. This was an unexpected bonus. Treya had talked to Elaine on the last day of her life, within hours in fact of her death. 'Did she say who she was meeting, or where?'

  'No. I've tried to remember for myself. But she never said. I'm sure. She just said she had a meeting and she'd see me tomorrow. She was always going to meetings.'

  'And she didn't seem upset? Did she act as if anything was bothering her?'

  Treya hesitated, met Glitsky's eyes again. 'It's so hard to say now, knowing what happened. Everything has a different feel. You wonder if you saw something or not.'

  'But you think you did?'

  She shook her head. 'I'm not sure. If she'd come in on Monday, smiling and happy, I never would have given it a thought. I know I didn't think about it when I got home Sunday night. I just thought she was over-booked, like she gets. Got.' The tense shift bothered her, and she stopped.

  'It's OK.' Glitsky had to fight the urge to reach over and touch her, offer her some comfort. Instead, he sat back, no threat and no push, and let her find the thread again. 'It's OK,' he repeated.

  'I know, I know.' Her look was grateful, and she held it on him for an instant. Then she nodded and sighed. 'Now I'd say that yes, something might have been bothering her. She seemed a little… detached.' Treya hastened to protect her boss. 'But she'd get that way sometimes. She always had a lot on her mind, on her plate.'

  Suddenly Treya's expressive face took on a different look – a sudden impatience with all this, an almost angry frustration.

  'What are you thinking?' Glitsky asked.

  'I'm thinking she didn't know her killer. This is stupid. Her murder wasn't connected to anything. Nobody she knew could have wanted to kill her.' She raised her eyes, a challenge with some barb in it that he didn't quite understand. 'You had to know her.'

  'I did,' Glitsky replied. 'I thought she was fantastic.'

  'She never mentioned you as a friend.' Suddenly the barb in her voice was pronounced, unmistakable – all of her protective instincts on display from out of nowhere.

  'Well, no, not exactly a friend. I knew her when she worked at the Hall.'

  'I knew that. I knew who you were. I was there then too, as a clerk.'

  Glitsky had no response to this, although Treya seemed in some way to hold it against him. He attempted to get beyond it. 'In any event, that's another reason why I'd like to know what she might have been working on. I've got kind of a personal interest as well.'

  But if he thought this admission would ally him with Treya, he was mistaken. 'So you've kept up on her career since she'd left the Hall?'

  He answered guardedly. 'A little bit, yes.'

  'In a kind of a hands-off way.'

  Glitsky raised his shoulders awkwardly. 'I guess you'd say I admired her from a distance.' He wondered how suddenly everything had gone so wrong with this interview. 'I'm sorry if I've offended you.'

  'Not at all,' she said. 'You're only doing your job. But Elaine is very personal to me. I know who her friends were and it's a little insulting to pretend you were close to her too, so maybe I'd tell you more.'

  'That wasn't what I was doing.'

  'Really?' she asked with ill-concealed disbelief. 'Then I'm sorry I got that impression. Perhaps I overreacted.' All business now, Treya cut off further inquiry as she stood, signaling – although it was not her place to do so – that the interview was over. 'I'm sure the firm wouldn't object if you got a warrant for her files or to go over her client list. You might find something there that you're looking for.'

  Glitsky rarely felt either inept or out of his depth, but he now felt both, and acutely. Perhaps it was a sense of foolishness because he found her so physically attractive and at such an inappropriate time. Whatever it was, he was standing along with her, not willing to risk falling any further in her esteem.

  He hadn't gotten anywhere here and, in fact, he'd had little confidence that any real evidence was going to come from this quarter. But it had been the only place he could think of to begin, to connect with someone who had known her.

  'Ms Ghent, please.' His shoulders were sagging. He was a pathetic figure – he knew it. Regal, she stopped at the entrance to the cubicle, turned back to face him, challenging, her arms crossed, her color now high in her cheeks.

  'I want you to understand that I'm not looking for specific evidence. I'm trying to get a sense of her work, her life, if maybe there was some reason…' Too close to revealing the non-professional truth about why he'd come here, he stood mute and helpless.

  Treya Ghent gave every appearance of considering his words, but when she finally spoke, there was no sign of cooperation. 'I really don't think so, but if anything occurs to me, Lieutenant, I'll let you know.'

  This time, it was a dismissal.

  6

  At high noon, Hardy walked into the small lobby for the segregated jailing rooms at the hospital. It was a depressing and cold room, dimly lit, with high barred windows and a strong smell of antiseptic, sweaty yellowing walls and a couple of battered wooden benches, although no one was using them at the moment. To his left, a uniformed female officer sat at a pitted green desk equipped with a computer terminal and a telephone. She looked up at Hardy's arrival with a kind of relief. He went across to her and stated his business.

  'You know he's already got a visitor. His mother.'

  It didn't take phenomenal cosmic powers to realize that Jody Burgess had made a poor impression on this woman. Hardy
gave her a sympathetic smile. 'Her poor baby isn't a criminal, he's sick. There's been some terrible mistake. You can't keep him here and it's all your fault and she's going to sue.'

  The officer smiled back at him. 'You've been reading my mail.'

  'Maybe I can calm her down.'

  'Maybe.' She pushed a button on her desk and an instant later another uniformed officer – this one a large white male – pushed open the door at the other end of the room. Hardy thanked her and she gave him a shrug. 'Have fun,' she said.

  When the guard unlocked the door to Cole's room, Hardy understood why seasoned jailbirds might try to pull some kind of scam to get a few days here. It wasn't the Ritz, but it was far better than a shared cell at the jail behind the Hall of Justice – a private room with a window and a television set, now blessedly dark and silent, suspended from the ceiling.

  Cole was propped halfway up in a hospital bed, a clean sheet covering him to the waist. Wearing a standard hospital gown, he might have been any badly beaten-up patient except for the handcuffs which shackled him to the bed's railing. An older, slightly more corn-fed but not unattractive version of Dorothy Elliot sat holding his free hand on the window side of the bed.

  'Knock if you have any trouble,' the guard said, and closed the door. Hardy took a step forward and introduced himself – Dorothy's friend.

  'Thank God,' Jody Burgess exclaimed, standing up, coming around the bed with a kind of buoyantly expectant expression and both arms outstretched. 'Mr Hardy,' she enthused, 'Dorothy told me what you did and I don't know how we'll ever be able to thank you.'

  She wore an expensive-looking, baggy, dark green jogging outfit with an unfamiliar logo over the left breast. As she came closer, Hardy noted the carefully-applied make-up, dyed blonde hair, and a lot of baubles, costume jewelry -earrings and bracelets, rings with large colored stones on both hands. He pegged her at sixty-two or -three, going for forty without great success.

  'I didn't really do much.' Hardy felt that he had, in fact, done nothing. From what he'd been told, Cole had been here in the hospital by the time Hardy had arrived at the Hall of Justice yesterday afternoon. He assayed a polite smile. They would have gotten to testing your son, Mrs Burgess, but-'