The Hearing

by John Lescroart

Glitsky had his feet on his desk, his fingers tented over his mouth. 'Why don't you make it that way again?'

  'I could do that.' Hardy did, then reached across the desk, opened one of the drawers and withdrew a handful of peanuts. 'I must say, though, that the old open-door policy you used to take such pride in seems to be in jeopardy and this, in turn, might precipitate a drop in your tremendous popularity with your troops, which I'd hate to see.'

  It might have been in spite of himself, but Glitsky's face softened – all the way, say, from diamond to granite. 'I wish I was Irish and liked to hear myself talk as much as you do.'

  'Were,' Hardy replied.

  'Were what?'

  'You said "was". I wish I was Irish. But it's "were". Present conditional contrary to fact takes the subjunctive. I wish I were Irish. People don't seem to know that anymore.'

  Glitsky shook his head, pulled his feet off the desk.

  'That's exactly what I mean. Twenty words when five will do.'

  'Five can be good,' Hardy replied. 'Brevity and all that. But it's not all it's cracked up to be. Twenty words, if they're the right ones – and that, my friend, is the key – can be downright sublime. And, of course, though few acknowledge it anymore in our jaded age, proper use of the subjunctive is the hallmark of a civilized man.'

  Worn down, Glitsky finally came all the way to a smile. 'Were I to care, I would make a note of it.' He popped a peanut of his own. 'So how'd it go downstairs?'

  Hardy sat back. 'I somehow escaped contempt of court, but I don't think by much.' He briefly outlined the highlights of the arraignment, concluding with his surprise that Glitsky had not been in attendance. He indicated the empty desktop. 'But then, seeing the piles of work you're wading through…'

  A silence settled.

  Hardy continued. 'Afterwards I had another nice chat with my client. It didn't exactly perk me up. He doesn't remember anything. The night's a complete blank, which is more drunk than I've ever been.'

  'And you've pushed the envelope a few times if I remember, which you don't.'

  'From time to time in my youth. For research purposes only. Anyway, I like to consider myself an aficionado on the subject, and I've never had the kind of blackout Cole is describing, which makes me have doubts.'

  But Glitsky was shaking his head. 'There's all kinds of new pills nowadays, Diz. The date rape drug. Also, more easily available, Halcion could do it.'

  'Halcion?'

  'The sleeping pill. When you were doing your drink research, didn't you ever take Halcion before tying one on?'

  'I don't remember, really. It's all a blank.' But he broke a smile. 'Just kidding. Is that what happens?'

  'That's the word. Complete blackout.' Glitsky glanced at the closed door. He lowered his voice anyway. 'I had a meeting of my own this morning. Batiste, Ridley Banks, Strout, the guys at the scene. I wanted to talk about the problems in the tape.'

  'Banks was downstairs in court.'

  'Yeah, I figured he would be. I told him we ought to back off from the confession.'

  'You suggested that?' This was further than Hardy thought Abe would have taken it. 'Out loud?'

  'Yeah, but Ridley was a little sensitive to the idea that the confession was bogus. Seemed to think it would reflect on the way he conducted it.'

  'And he wouldn't be all wrong.'

  'And he knows that, too.' The lieutenant blew out wearily. 'It's tricky, Diz. These are my guys. They gave me what I asked for. I don't blame them for being ticked off.'

  'I don't either, but ticked off is one thing, letting a guy go down on bad evidence is another.'

  'Well, there you go. Anyway, my colleagues and superiors were of a like mind. There was plenty to arrest Burgess, still is. He gave us more when we talked to him. Now he goes to trial. It's not our job anymore. End of story.'

  It was Hardy's turn to sigh. 'But it's not, Abe. You know it's not.'

  'Don't give me that, Diz. It might be. And don't confuse bad evidence with not guilty. Your boy killed Elaine all right. It's all about how we prove it. I want a clean case, that's all.'

  'I think you want more than that.'

  Glitsky cracked a peanut shell. 'I'm trying to figure out how to conduct an investigation and get more evidence when we've got a suspect already in jail and presumably going to trial.'

  'Carefuully.' Pointing a finger, Hardy stopped his friend's response. 'See? I can be brief. Pithy, even.'

  Glitsky was about to reply again, and again was interrupted, this time by a knock at the door. 'It's open.'

  Hardy clucked disapprovingly. 'You keep saying that.'

  But in an instant it was true. Standing in the doorway was Chief of Police Dan Rigby himself, accompanied by Sharron Pratt and Gabriel Torrey. An uncomfortable Frank Batiste. Behind them was an amorphous assemblage of humanity – workers from the DA's office, uniformed cops, a couple of reporters, perhaps the random passer-by. Hardy could see the homicide inspectors from the detail gathered around at the outer fringes.

  'Well, well, well,' Torrey said over Rigby's shoulders. 'Isn't this cozy?'

  There wasn't room for a private party in Glitsky's office, so at Rigby's command the players trooped across the homicide main room and poured themselves into one of the interrogation areas – in fact, the very one in which Cole Burgess had spent his sweat time.

  Airless and without windows, with a small table now pushed against one wall and three chairs, the interrogation room probably wasn't a brilliant choice for a meeting either, but the mood was somehow, suddenly, urgent.

  Torrey, in a kind of triumphant rage, kept repeating, 'I knew this. I knew it,' to whomever would listen. Rigby, torn between the urge to protect one of his men and the need to contain any possible scandal on the force, wanted a door he could close with all the principals behind it, and he wanted it now.

  'We don't need Mr Hardy sitting in on this, Chief,' said Pratt.

  Rigby ignored her. He wasted no time on preamble, but turned to his homicide lieutenant and let fly. 'Mr Torrey tells me that this morning, Mr Hardy here referred to a videotape at the arraignment on Burgess. How'd he get to see it?'

  'We're nowhere near releasing discovery yet,' Pratt butted in pointlessly. 'He didn't get it from our office.'

  Everyone already knew that. Rigby kept his eyes on Glitsky. 'Abe?'

  But Hardy, whose slip in the courtroom had put Glitsky on this hot seat, wasn't going to let his friend burn. 'I never said I saw a tape,' he said. 'Cole told me they'd videotaped him.'

  'How did he know?' Banks interjected.

  'Come on. He assumed,' Hardy shot back. 'It's not like this is some secret procedure. Everybody gets taped.'

  But Torrey was ready for this denial. He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, directed his gaze to Rigby. 'Here's what Mr Hardy said exactly. I took the liberty of having the court reporter type it up for me.' He read. '"He was drunk and barely coherent, your honor! The tape of his interrogation shows it clearly." Sounds to me like he saw it.'

  Hardy wasn't backing down. 'Doesn't prove a damn-'

  But Glitsky put a hand on his arm. 'It's OK, Diz.' He turned to Rigby. 'I played it for him.'

  After a shocked moment of silence, Banks blew out heavily. 'Jesus.'

  Torrey pumped a fist. 'Fuckin' A,' he whispered.

  Pratt cleared her throat. 'Well, Chief, in light of this admission, you can't-'

  'Sharron! Please.' Rigby stopped her with his palm, turned to his chief of homicide. 'Lieutenant Glitsky, are you telling me you gave evidence in a murder trial to a defense attorney? Am I hearing this right?'

  Glitsky inclined his head an inch. 'Yes, sir.'

  The Chief sighed heavily. 'All right.' His mouth worked. He might have been grinding his teeth. 'All right,' he repeated. 'We've got to look into this. Meanwhile-'

  Torrey: 'What's to look into? He's admitted-'

  'MEANWHILE,' Rigby bellowed to shut him up. He turned to Batiste. 'Meanwhile, Frank, I'd like you and Abe to meet me up in my offic
e in' – he checked his watch – 'thirty minutes. Lieutenant, if you'd like to bring a grievance officer along with you, that might be prudent. Everybody else,' his voice hardened, 'I'd appreciate it if anything mentioned behind these doors stays here until I can prepare a statement after we get to the bottom of what went on.' He glared at Pratt and Torrey. 'And if there is a statement to make, we'll make it together. Is that clear?'

  'We can agree to that,' Pratt stated.

  'Though it should be sooner rather than later,' Torrey added.

  'As soon as the facts are in,' Rigby replied crisply. He cast a last slow look around the room, finally rested on Glitsky, shook his head. 'Jesus Christ, Abe,' he said under his breath, 'what were you thinking?'

  Then he turned the knob and was out the door, leaving it open behind him.

  Gene Visser's law enforcement career began in a promising fashion. He spent three years working the streets in a squad car, then got moved up and he earned a stripe and an inspector's job in burglary. After three years in that department, he put two more in vice, took the sergeant's exam, and applied for the next opening as inspector of homicide, which was pretty much the top rung in the ladder for working cops. When he got that promotion at thirty, he was one of the youngest inspectors ever to attain that rank and position.

  But Visser had a couple of character flaws that were going to negatively impact on his aspirations in the force. The first one was a tendency to theorize before all the evidence was in. He'd get a feeling about who among the various suspects in a case was the most likely culprit, and he'd focus his energies trying to prove his point. The first couple of cases he'd handled, this approach had even worked – quite often, the guy who looks like he did it actually did.

  But not always.

  And the law of averages – along with the complexity of motives and situations in real-life homicides – finally caught up with him in a high-profile case.

  This was where his second major failing – a lack of focus regarding loyalty – came into play. Visser thought it only made sense to have friends in the press and the DA's office as well as with the police. It couldn't hurt to give a reporter a little advance heads up on what might be coming down the pipeline, sometimes before it was supposed to be public. These people – the DAs and reporters – after all, were the end users of his product. They ought to be entitled to an early look.

  And in their zeal for convictions (pre-Pratt), the occasional prosecutor would sometimes use Visser to funnel something to the press that they couldn't say themselves. If you were nice to reporters, they were nice to you in print. It was you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. Visser may even have thought that everybody did it, although in this belief he was mistaken.

  Until one day, stunned, he found himself transferred out of homicide. Soon he found it prudent to resign and get another job as Investigator for the District Attorney's office, where he was pretty much like a police inspector, but not really.

  That new position lasted only eighteen months. He could have stayed on, of course – he hadn't really done anything wrong – but he felt frozen out. He became the prosecutor's last choice if they needed a real investigator. Finally, deeply embittered by the system that had rejected him, he quit and, encouraged by several defense attorneys with whom he'd become friendly and who promised him steady work, he hung up a shingle as a private investigator.

  Visser had once been handsome, with a full head of sandy-colored hair, chiseled cheekbones, a well-trimmed goatee.

  In the decade since he'd had his own business, though, he'd gained forty pounds and two inches of forehead. He'd also lost the facial hair that had hid his chins. Now the skin of his face stretched tightly over too much flesh through which smallish eyes perpetually seemed to squint.

  Right now he was on his way to see Dismas Hardy's client Rich McNeil at Terranew Industries. He didn't have an appointment; that wasn't his style.

  McNeil's office was on one of the upper floors of the company's headquarters on California Street halfway up to Nob Hill. The room was of reasonable size, with modern furnishings, built-in bookshelves, windows on two of the walls looking out over downtown. When his secretary buzzed him and said a private investigator with the Manny Gait case was outside, McNeil let himself hope that maybe Hardy had hired a p.i., and maybe he had come up with some good news about something and couldn't wait to tell McNeil directly.

  But as soon as he saw Visser, he realized that this was wishful thinking. This beefy hunk of trailer trash couldn't be Hardy's man. Still, McNeil had let him into his office, so he'd be polite. He rose out of his seat, came around his desk, extended his hand. 'Mr Visser. Rich McNeil. What can I do for you?'

  The big man's grip crushed his hand. Intimidation with a smile. 'Thanks for seeing me on such short notice. You mind if I sit down a minute?'

  McNeil opened and closed his hand, relieved that it still seemed to be working. 'Not at all. I'm afraid I don't have a lot of time, but…'

  'I won't take much, then.' Visser pulled his pants at his thighs, settled back into one of McNeil's leather armchairs, looked around the office. 'Nice place,' he said. 'I got an office in an old warehouse on Pier 42. Great view, right on the water. Treasure Island, the Bridge. But no chairs like this.'

  'Well…' McNeil didn't have a chit-chat answer prepared. He pulled a chair up, put on an expectant expression. 'So…' He waited.

  Visser took another moment appreciating his comfort level, the buildings out the windows. He shifted his shoulders, leaned into the leather, came back to McNeil. 'Just so you know,' he began, 'so we're clear, I'm working for Dash Logan, Mr Gait's attorney. He thought it might be… helpful if you and me had a discussion about what we're looking at here, kind of off the record.'

  But McNeil was shaking his head. 'I don't know if that's a good idea. My lawyer told me-'

  'No, c'mon, hey. Lawyers, I know. I work for one. Dash talked to your lawyer yesterday, which is why I'm here today, call it a courtesy. Your guy – Hardy, is it? – he seems to think settling this case out of court isn't a good idea, says we've got no criminal case. But I gotta tell you…' The squinting eyes shifted around the office.

  'What?' McNeil prompted.

  With some effort, Visser brought his bulk forward on the chair. 'Here's the thing,' he began, all sincerity. His voice dropped a few decibels. 'This stuff happens in these cases, the lawyers, they start pissing at each other, pretty soon everybody loses. Mr Logan, he hates to see that…'

  'Well.' McNeil wanted no more of this. He started to stand up. 'Be that as it may, I really can't-'

  'The thing is, Rich,' Visser interrupted, almost coming out of his own chair, intimidating McNeil again back into his. 'I used to be a cop a lot of years. I know the kind of things they're looking for and they're going to get it. I mean, everybody's got a skeleton in their closet – tax stuff, couple of times you maybe took cash for rent without receipts. This is stuff your guy Hardy wouldn't know about.'

  'I'd be surprised at that,' McNeil said levelly. 'He used to be a cop himself.'

  'Hardy did?'

  McNeil pressed his advantage. 'That's right. So I get the feeling he's pretty much on top of what's going on, and he's telling me there's no case. Which is also what I believe, since I know Manny Gait is a liar, especially about giving me cash for rent. That didn't happen. None of it happened. So if that's all,' McNeil started to get up again, 'thanks for coming by, but I'm afraid we don't have anything else to discuss.' He braved a smile. 'We're just going to have to let the lawyers duke it out.'

  But Visser didn't take the hint. Instead, he leaned back again, rubbed a palm against the smooth leather armrest. 'Well, OK. It's just a case like this goes forward, it can get ugly. And Mr Logan doesn't want that.'

  'Neither does Mr Hardy. We'll just have to let the facts decide.' He gestured with his palms out, forced another smile. 'Well, if that's all, I do have a pretty busy morning…'

  At last, Visser got himself out of the chair. 'OK, but just for an ex
ample.'

  'What's that?'

  'You used to have a secretary named Linda Cook, didn't you?'

  McNeil felt his stomach go hollow. 'What about her? That was a mistake. A long time ago. My wife knows all about it.'

  'Yeah, sure. But the kids, you know, the grandkids. That whole thing comes up, it'd be kind of sad for them, the whole way they think about you.'

  A shaky breath, steel now in the voice. 'Get the hell out of here.'

  The fury and fear had no effect on Visser. He spread his own palms in a reflection of McNeil's earlier dismissal. 'All I'm saying is this kind of thing gets around in the public, it doesn't do you any good. You hear what I'm saying? Nobody needs that kind of aggravation, huh? Aren't I right?'

  They were in the front window of a tony little lunch place on Union, and Jody Burgess had given up even picking at her salad. Instead, she glared across the table at her daughter, who had just told her after a meal full of preamble that she and Jeff were not going to contribute to the payment for Cole's defense. 'I don't see how you can be so unfeeling,' she said. 'This is your own brother.'

  Dorothy hadn't even touched her sandwich, and it was her favorite – foccacio, goat's cheese, sun-dried tomatoes. She had no problem understanding how she could be so unfeeling – she'd had lots of practice, that was how. Every time she'd been tempted to feel something like compassion or sorrow or simple pity for her brother over the past half dozen years, she'd regretted it, and now the temptation wasn't all that great any longer. In fact, it was no longer a temptation at all.

  But she told herself that this was her mother, and although they'd had similar discussions hundreds of times before, she felt she still owed her somehow. Damn it.

  So she answered with her trademark enforced calm. 'My own brother,' she said, 'desperately needed a place to stay and because I felt something for him, I let him live in my house with my rather seriously handicapped husband and my own children. And Mom, you may remember this, you know what his thanks was? He stole from us. Repeatedly. From the kids' own piggy banks even. Can you believe that one? That was my reward for being nice to him, that the kids now will always remember Uncle Cole as a thief, if not a murderer. And isn't that a special thing for them to carry around for the rest of their lives?'