The Hearing

by John Lescroart

  A light but steady glissando of traffic noise emanated along the Embarcadero, wheels hissing on the dew-slicked cobbles. The water vanished into a moderate fog at fifty yards and somewhere far off seals were barking. Their cries carried over the trackless distance in a symphony of desolation.

  Hands deep in his pockets, McNeil shuddered against the chill.

  At the sound of footsteps approaching behind him, he turned. 'Hey, Diz.'

  Hardy wore a raincoat over his business suit. He extended his hand and the two men shook. 'This is a cheerful spot.'

  McNeil turned his head as though seeing where he stood for the first time. 'It is a little bleak, I guess. I've got some deliverables coming in by boat at Pier Eighteen and I want to be there to meet it. But I wanted to see you first, before work.' He hesitated. 'Before I had any more time to change my mind.'

  'About what?' Although Hardy had a pretty good idea.

  'Well…' He took a breath, steeling himself. 'I appreciate all you've done for me on this problem with Gait, but I've talked to Sally and we've pretty much decided to just say the hell with it, sell the damn building, take our money and pay off that bastard just so he'll go away. Maybe the insurance company will cover the civil settlement.'

  Hardy had his hands in the pockets of his raincoat. He cocked his head to one side. 'Are you sure you want to do that, Rich? Your insurance won't cover it – they'll say the theft charge isn't covered by your policy. It's going to cost you close to what you originally paid for the whole building.'

  'Well.' He sighed. 'I know, I know. Sally and I were just thinking about what the trial was going to put us through, cost us, all of that. And for what?'

  'To keep Manny Gait from shaking you down, Rich. How about that? You didn't do anything he's accusing you of.'

  McNeil shook his head wearily. 'If we lose, though, I could go to jail, Diz.'

  'We won't lose. There's no case.'

  A brittle smile. 'But you can't guarantee that, can you? You've told me a hundred times, you just can't predict what a jury's going to do. And if they find me guilty, I go down.'

  'That's a big "if", though.'

  'But it's my life. Why do I want to risk it?'

  It was an unassailable point, and Hardy couldn't answer it. Still, it galled and upset him. He jammed his hands further into his pockets, walked over to the railing and peered down into the waters of the bay, then turned back to his client. 'You're just going to let him steal a quarter million dollars from you because he's an asshole?'

  A desultory shrug. McNeil was embarrassed by the decision, although that didn't mean he was going to change it back. 'The building's going to go for five and a half or six million. That's plenty to live on. I'll put it on the market like everybody's been advising for the last decade. Give the cretin his goddamn blackmail money, well worth it to get him out of my life at last.'

  But Hardy just couldn't let it go. 'I thought we were going to press our own counter-charges against him. Punish him because he, not you, was the one doing something wrong. If I remember, you were pretty pissed off. You wanted to fight him. So did I. So do I.'

  'I know.'

  Hardy waited.

  His client tried another tack. 'It'll cost almost the same as a trial, anyway.'

  'No it won't. A quarter mil is about twice as much as a criminal trial would cost you, Rich. At least. Hell, I'll knock my own court appearance fees down to my hourly rate.' Hardy charged private clients three thousand dollars for every trial day in court, far in excess of his hourly rate of two hundred dollars. 'If the trial goes a week, that alone will save you a ton.'

  McNeil shook his head. 'It's not about money, Diz.'

  'That's kind of my point, too. Gait is the criminal here. Not you. So why are you the one being punished? After all he's put you through, don't you want to get this guy?'

  No answer. McNeil pulled his own overcoat more tightly up around his neck. 'So look,' he said, 'what do we have to do to get the charges dropped?'

  This morning, like most mornings, a good-sized crowd waited in a cold and sullen line that extended out the door of the jail and along the outside corridor behind the Hall of Justice.

  Jody Burgess wore jeans and a down parka, hiking boots and gloves. She'd been living here now for over a year, and still couldn't get used to the California weather. This morning, for example, it felt really cold, Arctic cold. Which was funny, because back in Ohio when it was in the mid-forties in February, it felt almost like springtime. People would go out in shirt sleeves, crunching through the snow, commenting about how nice it was, how warm.

  Here, though, in the damp fog, the cold ate right through to her bones. Even bundled up, she shivered.

  Finally, she got inside the lobby to the jail, where it was a little warmer anyway. She gave her name to the guard and waited some more. She tried not to spend these interminable minutes worrying, or thinking about how all this would turn out. She would just concentrate on trying to be there for Cole, who was a good boy in his heart. He might have made some mistakes, might have some serious problems he'd have to overcome, but he would never intentionally hurt anyone. He was a good boy.

  The time came and the guard escorted her down yet another hallway, to yet another dark doorway. She thought there must be at least a couple of visiting rooms – this one felt different from the last one she'd come to yesterday. The high windows let in a different light, although otherwise, they were pretty much identical. Fifteen gray metal chairs on this side of the glass, each one at its own station. All the chairs taken now, except the one to which they were directing her.

  She got to the seat and sat down. Cole wasn't across from her yet. She reached out and touched the little mouthpiece embedded into the glass.

  Her son.

  A guard let Cole through the door on the other side and pointed to the chair opposite her. The boy nodded, shrugged, doing what he was told. He didn't even look to see her -just the chair, where he was supposed to go and sit.

  Slack hair, shuffling gait, flat expression. The orange jumpsuit again. Always.

  She tried to conjure an image of when he'd been younger – she still had his high school graduation picture on the dresser next to her bed at home. His hair was shorter then, neatly combed. Freckles and a wide open smile.

  Where had that boy gone? Although she knew. She knew.

  'Hey, Mom.'

  'Hey, Cole.' She waited to see if he had something to say, but evidently not. She leaned forward, her mouth close to the speaker. 'Are you all right?'

  His first answer was a humorless chuckle, but he didn't want his mom getting upset, so softened it. 'Better,' he said. 'Yeah. Fine.'

  'Really?'

  'Well, the massage girl didn't show up last night, but other than that…'

  'But they're taking care of you? You're eating?'

  He leaned back and patted his stomach. 'They're fattening me up for the kill.'

  Jody frowned. 'That's not funny. Don't say that.'

  He came forward again, serious. 'It's really not so bad. You just stay out of people's way.'

  'But you're getting your… medicine.'

  'So far.' His flat gaze challenged. 'And it's not medicine, Mom. It's methadone.'

  'I know that,' she answered quickly. 'I know what it is. And you're doing OK with it?'

  'It's all right.' He brought his own mouth closer to the glass. 'I'm thinking…' Nervously, he ran his hand along his jawline.

  'What?'

  He considered it for another long moment. 'Well, I don't know. You know my lawyer?'

  'Yes, Cole, I know your lawyer. Mr Hardy.'

  'Yeah, well, he suggested maybe I ought to think about asking them to cut back on the dose. If I wind up being in here a while, it might… I don't know.'

  Jody did not dare succumb to hope, but it was the first time she'd been tempted in years. She was careful to try and phrase the reply in neutral terms. Too much enthusiasm from Mom might kill the impulse. 'It might be worth a try, Cole,
but you've got a lot of other issues you're dealing with through this.'

  He leaned back, folded his arms across his chest. A deep sigh escaped. 'I'm thinking it might be the only issue.'

  She nodded carefully.

  'I really do,' he said after a minute. 'I mean, it'd be easy enough to try here. If it didn't work, I could just go back to where I am now.'

  'Well.' Jody's voice was resigned, low-key. 'It's worth thinking about.'

  'They've got a program.' Then he added quickly, 'I'm not sure.'

  She was happy to leave it there. 'If you think you could handle it.'

  'I don't know,' he said. 'Maybe.' He came forward again. 'You don't have to come here every day, you know.'

  'I know that. But I want to. I like seeing you, after all.' This admission seemed to make him uncomfortable, though, and she changed the subject. 'You should know that I'm meeting with Mr Hardy today to talk about money and things. You don't have to worry. That's all under control.' She glossed over it and kept on talking. 'Has he mentioned anything to you yet about what he plans to do? In terms of your defense?'

  'Not really. We haven't really talked.'

  Jody frowned. 'Well, I'll get something on that today, too. But did you see… do you get the paper in here?'

  He shook his head. 'No mints on the pillows before bedtime either. In fact, no pillows. But why?'

  She scratched at the counter. 'Because there was an article this morning about Cullen.'

  'What about him?'

  'Well, evidently he's saying he gave you the gun.'

  Cole came forward, sat up straight. 'What gun?'

  'The gun that was used to kill Elaine Wager. The murder weapon.'

  'Cullen?'

  She nodded.

  'He never gave me any gun.'

  'Well, in the paper today, there's a story about Cullen giving you the gun.'

  'When did he do that? Did it say?'

  'Friday or Saturday.'

  'Friday or Saturday?' He was trying to dredge it up. 'That didn't happen.'

  Jody leaned up to the glass, her mouth all but flush up against the talk box. She whispered, 'Are you telling me the truth here, Cole? I want to be able to tell Mr Hardy…'

  Cole was glaring, his mind engaged. 'I'll tell him myself, Mom. Cullen didn't give me any gun on Friday or Saturday or any other time. I picked that gun up out of the street. It was such a little thing, at first I didn't even know what it was, just sitting in the gutter down next to her and…' He stopped. His mouth was open, his eyes searching somewhere within himself.

  'What?' For a terrifying moment, Jody thought that her son might have had something like a stroke. 'Cole? What's wrong?'

  The recovery was as abrupt as its onset. His eyes snapped back into focus, and if his mother wanted to see a greater clarity in them, perhaps she wasn't entirely mistaken. 'I didn't kill her,' he whispered in something like awe. 'She was already dead.'

  17

  After his dawn meeting with Rich McNeil on the Embarcadero, Hardy had turned around and driven back out to St Mary's Hospital, which was halfway back to his home from downtown. Now he was next to Glitsky's bed in the ICU. On the other side of the bed, a green heart monitor beeped steadily and repeatedly drew a jagged line across a small video screen.

  'So,' he was saying, 'there's these two guys and the one goes, "That's how I want to die, just like my grandfather, where he's just sitting there talking, enjoying life, and suddenly his jaw drops down on his chest and his eyes close and he's gone. Yep, that's the way I want to go…"' Hardy paused. '"Not kicking and screaming like the other guys in the car."'

  'Dying jokes?' Glitsky shifted under the sheets. 'You're telling me dying jokes?' The patient blew out a long and slow breath and closed his eyes.

  Hardy thought he looked like hell. His pallor was pronounced. An oxygen tube wrapped around his face and settled under his nose. Some IVs were set up and apparently dripping into him. He opened his eyes again. 'I've got one.'

  Hardy took it as a good sign. 'Hit me.'

  'This rich guy is near death, fretting that he can't take his money with him when he goes.' Glitsky took another deep breath, adjusted the oxygen tube into his nose. 'So he asks God if he can. "Please, I've been good." And God finally gives in and says OK, he can take one suitcase full of anything he wants to heaven. So he decides that gold is always good and fills his suitcase with bricks of the stuff.'

  'How'd he do that if he was near death?' Hardy asked. 'Gold weighs a ton. He'd have to get out of bed, go to the bank, if they even keep gold in a bank. How sick was he, anyway? What did he have?'

  Glitsky glared at him. 'A heart attack. I don't know. Suspend your disbelief for a minute.'

  'Yeah, but a detail like that-'

  'Anyway, sure enough, the guy dies-'

  'And about time, too.'

  Glitsky collapsed back into his pillows. 'Never mind.'

  'What?'

  'You want to hear this or not?'

  Hardy acquiesced. 'OK, the guy is dead…'

  'Right. He gets to the pearly gates. St Peter says, "Hold it, no luggage allowed," and the guy tells Peter that in his case God made an exception. Peter should check with the boss.'

  'This is a long joke,' Hardy said.

  Glitsky ignored him, forging ahead. 'So God says our guy isn't lying. He's allowed to bring one suitcase. And Peter says, "You know, I've been here a long time and nobody's ever brought anything with them before. I'd be curious to know what it is." So the guy proudly opens his suitcase. And Peter looks at him and goes, "Pavement? You brought pavement?'"

  Hardy crossed a leg and sat back. A smile played at the corners of his mouth. 'That's not really a dying joke.'

  Glitsky pushed the button to raise his bed, his eyes now with some life in them. 'What are you talking about? A guy dies in it, so it's a dying joke, OK? It's not like there's a formal definition.'

  A partition sheet hung from the ceiling and set off Abe's bed from the others in the room. Someone was pulling it back and Hardy turned to see Abe's spry and spunky seventy-something father, a yarmulke over his white hair, plaid pants, baggy polo shirt. 'Definition of what?' he asked.

  'A dying joke,' Hardy said. 'Hi, Nat.'

  'I got a good one of those,' Nat replied. 'How you feeling today, Abe?'

  'Abused.'

  Hardy smiled, translating. 'Normal.'

  Nat went around to the monitor side, leaned over the bed and kissed his son on the face. 'They have toothbrushes here? Maybe you want to use one.'

  Glitsky had been extraordinarily lucky, although that did not mean he was out of trouble yet. At the peak of Nob Hill, Grace Cathedral had seen more than its share of heart attacks, more even than the famous and appropriately-named Cardiac Hill, the steep and lengthy grade upon which some genius architect had erected the main walkway into 3Com Park. Almost anyone walking any distance to Grace from any direction had to climb, and history had shown that many elderly hearts – and some not so elderly – weren't up to it.

  Accordingly, a well-attended event such as Elaine Wager's memorial service usually featured an ambulance staffed with paramedics parked nearby. There had been one there on Monday morning when Glitsky's heart had gone into ventricular fibrillation. They'd had the electrodes on him and shocked the muscle out of its spasm in – everyone agreed – a miraculously short time.

  'So what are they saying now?' Hardy wanted the facts, but they were maddeningly inexact. 'What's the prognosis?'

  'They're saying it was moderate,' Glitsky told him.

  'Which means what?' Nat put in.

  Glitsky cast an eye over to his dad. 'More or less it means they don't have a clue what happens next.'

  'Swell,' Hardy said. 'That's really swell.'

  'I like it,' Abe said, agreeing with him. 'It could be a dying joke, after all.'

  'What are the options?' Nat asked. The boys liked to run with tough-guy irony, but Nat didn't find any part of it funny. 'What are they actually telling you?'
<
br />   'Anything I ask. Although like everything else, if you know nothing about something, it's hard to pick the right questions.' Glitsky drank from his water glass. He lifted his shoulders. 'The only way they can figure actual damage to the heart muscle for now is the enzyme count, which, they say, is in the moderate increased range. Also, they're doing an angiogram before they let me out of here to see if I've got blocked arteries, which looks like a good guess. Then they'll either do a bypass or decide I don't need one.'

  'So what does moderate heart muscle damage mean?' Hardy asked.

  'It means maybe not as much muscle died as could have, so I've got a chance to keep living.'

  Nat needed to clarify. 'You mean some of your heart could be dead right now – the muscle – and you wouldn't know it?'

  Glitsky nodded. 'The part that didn't get any oxygen for long enough, that's my understanding. But they don't think that was too much.'

  'But if it was?' Nat persisted.

  A shrug. 'Then it ought to show up in a couple of days. And that would be a problem.'

  'How big a problem?'

  'A problem,' Glitsky repeated. His father's hand was on the bed and he covered it with his own. 'But I'm lucky so far, Dad. They're saying these enzyme levels are OK. Let's go with that. If nothing gets complicated, I'm out of here by the weekend. Dancing.'

  Nat looked across at Hardy. 'This I would like to see.'

  Dr Campion – mid-fifties, exuding competence – had come and gone. He'd shooed both Hardy and Nat out for the morning exam. When he came out, he told them he'd ordered the nurse to give Glitsky a light sedative. They could go back in to say goodbye – that was enough visiting for this morning. He cautioned both of them to refrain from talking about anything that might be upsetting. The feeling was that they were just going to give him another day to rest, then they'd evaluate the situation and make some decisions.

  Hardy stood by the bed and waited while Nat talked domestic details. Abe's youngest son, Orel, was in school today but would be back by visiting hours tonight. Nat hadn't heard back from Isaac, the eldest, until late last night. He was driving up today from LA and he'd be by tonight as well. Nat hadn't been able to reach Jacob in Milan, but he was still trying.