The Hearing

by John Lescroart

  'He couldn't catch you in time is what I heard.'

  A snort. 'He tell you that? 'Cause it's a lie.'

  Hardy had a haunch on the edge of the table in the visitor's room, and now he leaned forward, hovering over where his client sat. 'How do you know what happened? You were unconscious.'

  'Well…' Cole's hard gaze gradually gave way. 'But there's no way he's trying to help me.'

  'No,' Hardy agreed. 'I don't think he is. Not for your sake anyway. The thing is, Cole, he's a good cop. An honorable person.'

  Another dismissive grunt, the concept for him obviously difficult to believe. 'I'll tell you what it is. He's worried we'll decide to charge him with brutality after all. He's trying to cut you off on that. Figures if he pretends to be on our team, it'll all go away.'

  Hardy sat back. 'You got it all worked out, huh?'

  'It's not rocket science.'

  'No. You're right. So we don't want his help, is that your position?'

  For an instant, Cole's expression sharpened. 'He's not offering any help. He's covering his ass.'

  Hardy nodded, stood up, cricked his back. When he spoke, his tone was harsh. 'See if you can wrap your brain around something, Cole. There's nobody else in the entire police department who's looking for anything about this case, let alone anybody else who might have been involved in Elaine's death. But Glitsky is. He's doing it on his own for his own reasons, and you'd be smart not to care too much about what they are. You want to know the truth, yeah, he's covering himself.' He felt his voice getting away from him, his anger building. 'Glitsky doesn't want your conviction overturned because you made a stupid, stupid confession. That's where he's coming from, Cole. He wants to nail you on righteous evidence. That's what he's about – he doesn't give a shit about your poor sorry ass.' He almost added that he didn't much either. If it wasn't a death penalty case, he'd have been long gone.

  'But anything he does find is going to be against us.'

  Hardy, still wound up, whirled on the boy. 'What he's trying to find, Cole, is the truth. Which, correct me if I'm wrong, is supposed to help us.'

  Cole's eyes bounced around the corners of the room.

  Getting his tone back under control, Hardy sat on the edge of the table again. 'Look,' he said, 'I don't care at all really what Glitsky's motives are. If he wants to convict you, that's fine by me, and it ought to be by you. He doesn't want the confession in because as soon as that happens, we've got grounds for appeal.'

  'Appeal is after I'm convicted. I don't want to talk about appeal.'

  'Oh, OK, let's not then.' Hardy brought a palm down sharply on the table. 'Get a clue here, Cole. You're in deep shit and Glitsky's the only one doing anything that might help you, whether helping you is his intention or not. That's assuming the truth helps you.' He'd challenged Cole a minute before with the same point, and now he waited again for a response – denial, outrage, something – but none came. He sighed. 'Now, listen, Glitsky's a fact. We'll use him if we can. If you can't live with that, then I'm gone, too.'

  Cole met his gaze. 'I don't trust him.'

  Hardy dropped his trump. 'Well, he's been my best friend for like thirty years, so I'd have to say I do. Now you've got two options – you can live with it, trust my instincts and talk strategy.' He threw a little edge into it. 'Or you can tell your mother to hire another lawyer.'

  This brought a rise. 'It's not my mother.'

  'Yeah, Cole. Yes it is. Don't kid yourself. Unless you want to take responsibility on your own. But that's not what you do, is it?' He waited, surprised that it had come to this. He hadn't intended to have any of this discussion, but now that they were in it, he'd follow it until it ended, even if it meant terminating his involvement with the case. Hardy thought that his client needed a dose of some hard life truths almost more than he needed a good attorney.

  Cole swallowed rapidly, a couple of times in succession. He set his jaw, finally raised his eyes. For the first time, Hardy saw something like resolve in them. 'All right,' Cole said. 'I'm listening. We'll do it your way. What's the plan?'

  Hardy felt the tension break in his shoulders. He was still angry and frustrated, he still didn't much care for his client. But for now at least they could work together. Maybe. He leaned back, arms folded over his chest. 'The strategy is two-pronged. First, if you did it-'

  'Wait a minute. I said I'm not sure if… I mean I didn't-'

  'You wait a minute.' Hardy came forward, fed up to here with objections and interruptions. Here, in all probability, sat the man who had killed Elaine Wager. Maybe he didn't deserve the death penalty, but Hardy didn't have to endure his self-serving excuses. 'I don't want you to tell me whether you did or didn't kill Elaine any more. Do you understand me? I don't care about your denials or your admissions. That's not why I'm defending you. And right now I'm talking. You listen, that's the deal. Maybe you'll learn something.'

  Cole's eyes narrowed. Any hint of his methadone lethargy had vanished. He slumped back in the chair, his arms crossed. Pissed, dissed, and dismissed.

  Hardy ignored it all. He picked up in a relaxed voice. 'Our first line of defense is unconsciousness. The facts here are going to make it very difficult, if not impossible, to even get to reasonable doubt about whether you did it.'

  'I-'

  Hardy held up a palm. 'Not interested. Of course we argue that you didn't do it. But what's really going to matter is if we can prove that even if you did, you were so drunk that you couldn't have realized what you were doing. With six or eight drinks in you, you're legally drunk. With twenty and in withdrawal, you're comatose.'

  'What about the gun, though?'

  'I was going to ask you the same thing.'

  'I didn't get any gun from Cullen. He's lying.'

  'Why would he lie? I thought he was your friend?'

  'Yeah, right.' A shrug. 'He's out on three separate probations for selling rock. He's got three or four strike convictions – robberies. They pull him in another time, he figures this time they've got to keep him. So he makes this up and they trade. Hey. You know this stuff happens all the time. And in this case, somebody wants to see me fall more than him, so they go for the trade.'

  'Who would want that? And why?'

  'I don't know. Somebody with the DA. Some cop. Maybe your friend Glitsky. I don't know.'

  Hardy felt his blood heating up again, but tried to ignore it. 'You know anybody either place? Have you had any run-ins I ought to know about? Screwed around with some cop's daughter, anything like that?'

  'No.' He shook his head, then decided the denial wasn't strong enough. 'Hey, I swear to God, no. Nothing like that.'

  Hardy was fairly sure that he was telling the truth. And the fact was, Cole didn't need to have a personal enemy in the DA's office. There might be nothing personal in it – Pratt had to win this case, that was all. To fill a hole in the prosecution's theory of the crime, a witness needed to appear to account for Cole's possession of the murder weapon.

  And lo, it had come to pass.

  Hardy knew he needed to have a few words with Cullen Leon Alsop, get a better feel for that situation before too long. But first he needed Cole to understand his strategy, to be on board with it. 'So Plan A is unconsciousness. You don't remember.'

  'But I do remember.' He pushed ahead over Hardy's warning expression. 'Seeing the gun. I don't know why it's just that, like a snapshot. I didn't have the gun. It was in the gutter, next to her. She was already down, I swear.'

  Hardy was almost tempted to believe him.

  'I swear,' Cole repeated.

  'All right, Cole, you swear. But moving along, I'd also like to address the point that if you didn't kill Elaine, someone else did.' Hardy didn't really think so, but mentioning it to Cole would serve as a pop-quiz for his credibility. As he sat across the table from him now, he would have given about eighty per cent odds that in the next few days his client would develop another 'snapshot' of Monday night. And this one would feature the proverbial one-armed man.
>
  'I'm surprised Jeff would even talk to you about me.' Hardy had told him about his visit to the Chronicle that morning.

  'Why's that?'

  'I haven't exactly been like the perfect relative to those guys.'

  'So I hear.'

  'So… why?'

  Hardy started gathering his documents, his legal pad, his pens. He stood up and had an acute flashback of Cole's mother in his office yesterday, the later years of her life now reduced to pain and guilt because of Cole. Even if he hadn't killed Elaine. Hardy looked across the table at him. 'Maybe with Jeff it's like your friend Cullen, Cole. Something else is going on. You're in it, but you're not it. You know what I'm saying? There's a whole universe out there, and guess what?'

  'What?'

  'It doesn't all revolve around you.'

  22

  I think I was a little hard on him.' Hardy clinked his martini glass against David Freeman's.

  In theory, he'd given up martinis at lunch about ten years before, but he always made an exception at Sam's. He'd walk through the door, there would be the old, tiny dark-wood bar, the male waiters in tuxedos, the buzz of busy people fortifying themselves with honest food for a productive afternoon. And suddenly the thought of not having one martini would always seem to be an unnecessary denial of one of his life's great pleasures.

  Hardy hadn't missed a day of work because of alcohol in half a dozen years, and a martini wasn't going to slow him down this afternoon. So he ordered – Bombay Sapphire gin, up, very dry, one olive, and ice cold in a chilled glass.

  Freeman didn't agonize half as much as Hardy. Hell, he didn't agonize at all. He was standing, waiting at the bar when Hardy entered. Nodding in approval at the order, he said he'd have the same, and raised his glass when Hardy raised his own. 'I'm sure he had it coming.'

  Hardy broke a cragged grin. 'So here's to tough love, huh?'

  'Or failing that, just plain tough.'

  Both men sipped appreciatively. A waiter informed them that their booth was ready. He would carry their drinks for them.

  Sam's was already a popular San Francisco lunch spot by the turn of the twentieth century, and though it had changed some, it still retained a bit of the feel of a private men's club, with a public dining area in the main room. A side room provided more privacy, with booths along both walls that could be closed off by curtains, and it was to one of these that the men repaired.

  McNeil hadn't arrived yet. It was possible that he might not show up at all, although Hardy had kept his invitation vague enough to whet his client's curiosity – had Manny Gait agreed to a settlement already? McNeil had been so anxious for it that he'd called a post-dawn meeting yesterday. He would want to know right away, but he might also wonder why Hardy couldn't just leave a message. He would make the meeting if he could.

  But in the meantime, there was plenty to talk about, and Hardy tried to keep the excitement out of his voice as he filled Freeman in on the unexpected appearance of Dash Logan again, this time in his murder case.

  The old man, pensive, twirled the stem of his glass. 'Russian insurance fraud?' He was frowning. 'Sounds like the kind of work he'd like.'

  'The guy is everywhere. I find it pretty intriguing.'

  'Depressing is more like it.'

  'Maybe more than that.' Hardy sipped gin, put his glass down. 'I can't shake the feeling he's going to show up around Cole Burgess.'

  Freeman was shaking his head from side to side. 'I doubt it.'

  'I'll give you a scenario. Logan wasn't being cooperative – the judge told me this – when Elaine came to do her special master work. Dash wouldn't show her where the files she needed were. If she wanted to pull them, she'd have to find them first.'

  'Have I already called him an asshole?' Freeman muttered.

  Hardy nodded. 'Several times. So Elaine just turned herself loose in his office, going through everything. And she found something she wasn't supposed to see.'

  Freeman almost choked on his drink. 'You're saying you think Logan killed Elaine because of that?'

  'Or one of the Russians. Or another of his clients.'

  'You've been watching too many movies.'

  'All I'm saying is we can make the argument and drag our friend Dash through the mud pretty good, and I know that would make some people at this table very happy.' He shrugged. 'At least it's somebody to point at, David. Something the jury might want to think about.'

  Freeman wasn't convinced. 'Don't get me wrong, Diz, I love the concept,' he said, 'but it's pure speculation. Maybe she saw something and then maybe somebody killed her because of it. I don't think so. No judge would let you introduce it at trial.'

  Hardy didn't pursue it further, though – his client had arrived. As McNeil slid in beside him in the booth, it was clear he was both surprised and unhappy to find another guest at the table. Freeman had no real business being there, and when McNeil realized that he wasn't one of Hardy's old friends that he'd spontaneously asked to lunch – no, he wanted to talk about McNeil's case! – he was as close to hostile as Hardy had ever seen him.

  As always at Sam's, the waiter came by immediately. McNeil saw the other two glasses and ordered a martini, too, vodka. If not for that – the brief defusing hiatus -Hardy thought he might not have stayed. The pressure he'd been under recently threatened to escape in an explosion – the blood was up in his face. When he turned to Hardy, there was nothing but anger. 'You're trying to bring somebody else into my case at this stage? What kind of bullshit is this? I thought I told you it was over. We were settling. And whatever, it was all confidential.'

  'It is, Rich. David knows nothing about the facts of the case itself.'

  'He'd better not.'

  Freeman wasn't inclined to stop himself from jumping in, and jump in he did. 'I'm here to tell you about one of my cases. Not the facts. The way it's being handled.'

  'And I'm going to care?'

  'Yes, sir, I believe you will.'

  McNeil's florid face showed no sign of softening. He shot a glare again at Hardy, then took in Freeman with his rheumy basset eyes, his rumpled brown suit, the shaving stains on his shirt collar, the tufts of hair growing from the tops of his earlobes. 'This pisses me off,' he said. Unexpectedly, he grabbed at the curtain and violently pulled it closed. 'All right, I'm listening.'

  Hardy let Freeman talk and as always he was impressed by the man's brilliance. Although Hardy had tried to leave out specific facts in his recital of McNeil's problems to David, he was sure he'd let a few slip out in the telling. By contrast, Freeman told his own client's story completely without reference to the details of the case.

  It was a masterly performance. Freeman told Rich that he had a client with both civil and criminal cases pending. The leverage of one against the other. The offer to drop the criminal charges in return for a cash settlement. Finally, the name Dash Logan. The similarities in the logistics, not the facts, of his – McNeil's – case. And Hardy, by the way, would never have mentioned anything at all about Rich if Freeman hadn't first acquainted him with everything he had just recounted.

  By the time the story ended, McNeil had cooled. A long silence followed, during which the waiter returned, drew back the curtain, delivered Rich's drink and took their lunch orders – sweetbreads for Freeman, sand dabs for Hardy and McNeil.

  'Wine?' Freeman asked. 'ABC? Everybody OK with that?'

  'Don't know it,' McNeil said.

  'Anything but chardonnay,' Hardy explained.

  And finally his client smiled, Hardy thinking Freeman the goddamned genius. 'Yeah,' Rich said, 'sure, sounds good.'

  'Is one of you gentlemen a Mr Hardy?'

  He looked up. 'Yes.' He hated this – someone tracking him down at lunch. It could only be bad news, an emergency, a disaster. And he wondered where the Beck got it.

  The waiter was the soul of professional deference. 'Your office called. Do you know someone at St Mary's Hospital? They're trying to get in touch with you. You left your pager at the office, and evid
ently your cell phone is turned off.'

  'Thanks.' He used his napkin. There was no need to panic. 'I'll be right back.'

  Hardy followed the waiter through the main dining room – empty tables now for the most part – up to the bar. A large delivery truck had pulled into the alley by the front door, blocking any view, casting the room in shadow. As they handed him the phone, a large pallet of something fell outside with a tremendous crash. Even the bartender jumped.

  Glitsky was dead. He knew it.

  He called information for the number, let them connect it for him for an extra thirty-five cents. He didn't trust his brain to hold the number for the time it would take him to punch it in. 'You have a patient named Abraham Glitsky.'

  'One moment, please. He's in the ICU. I'm not sure he'll be able to take your call. Please hold.'

  His heart was clogging his throat. He cleared it. It made no difference. They were playing 'Feelings' in his ear while he was on hold. It didn't make the wait any shorter.

  The operator came back on. 'I'm sorry, sir, what was the name again?'

  'Dismas Hardy,' he said, tempted to add, 'What's yours, Phyllis?'

  'No,' she said, 'the patient?'

  'Abe Glitsky. He wasn't in the ICU last night. He had a room with another man.'

  She couldn't have cared less. 'The computer has him in the ICU. It doesn't say he's left it.'

  'Do you think you could maybe call the nurses' station there and check? Maybe someone would remember where they moved him if he's not still there.'

  'Oh, that's a good idea,' she said brightly. 'Please hold again. Sorry.'

  … feelings, oh, oh, oh…

  Then, finally, a tone, a ring. Someone picking it up. 'Glitsky. Hello.'

  For a minute, he felt light-headed with the rush of relief. 'Did you call me?'