The Hearing

by John Lescroart

  Falk took his heel off the bumper and walked off a few steps. He stood there a couple of moments, nodding his head as though reaching some conclusion. Then he turned back around. 'This is why I came out looking for you after you left.'

  'Why?'

  'Cause I'm on a thing out of the Jupiter. There's a lot of cocaine in and out of there, and since it's mostly a law crowd, people want to see it cleaned up before it gets busted. Am I making it clear?'

  'Yeah.'

  'OK, so yesterday, I'm passing a slow afternoon and your man Cullen comes in, just like we all said today. But he's not like a little impatient – he's climbing the walls. So he's halfway through a beer, and he gets up and goes to the bathroom. Couple of minutes later, one of the guys today – the p.i., Visser? – he gets up and goes to the bathroom. Now I been in there, the bathroom, and it's one stall, one pisser, and those two guys are in there, swear to God, ten minutes, before Visser comes out first and sits back down in his booth. Of course, it's Jupiter, late afternoon, nobody's paying any attention. Except me.'

  'So what?'

  'Not what you're probably thinking. Another minute and out comes your guy, Cullen Leon Alsop. Now he's Mr Mellow. Sits and finishes his beer, has another one while Visser and his lawyer friend leave.'

  Ridley shook his head. 'I must be missing something. This wasn't cocaine. This was heroin.'

  But Falk had a scent. 'Either way,' he said, 'Visser was in there and gave him something. Then this morning the guy's dead? I never thought of it until you came in today asking questions, but as soon as I saw that kid's face, I'm going click click click, you know?'

  'I know the feeling,' Ridley said. 'I'm getting it now.'

  25

  A decent legal mind?' Frannie whistled, impressed. 'David actually said those words?'

  'Every one of them, in that order.'

  Behind the bar of the Shamrock, Moses McGuire slid a black and tan – half Bass ale, half Guinness stout – across to his brother-in-law. 'He's buttering you up,' he said. 'I'll bet he raises your rent in the next few weeks. You watch.'

  But Hardy was shaking his head. 'It was a sincere compliment. You had to be there. I doubt if he even realized he said it.'

  'We're talking David Freeman?' Frannie said flatly. 'If he said it, he realized it.'

  'Shameless flattery,' Moses said. 'And not much of it at that.'

  Hardy sipped at his brew. 'Mose, I once heard Freeman say he thought Oliver Wendell Holmes wasn't too stupid. If the greatest jurist our country has produced is not too stupid and I've got a decent legal mind, you see where that puts me.'

  'At least in line for the Supreme Court,' Frannie said. 'I can't wait.'

  'In line for a rent increase, is more like it.' Moses wasn't to be persuaded. 'I wouldn't go anyplace expensive for dinner tonight. You're going to need the money.'

  It was date night. Normally they didn't do the Redwood Room at the Clift followed by Charles Nob Hill. On a typical Wednesday, they would meet – Hardy from downtown and Frannie from their house out on 34th Ave. – at the Little Shamrock midway between them at 9th and Lincoln. They would have one drink, usually at the bar with Moses behind it, and then repair to dinner wherever the mood took them.

  A young couple had seated themselves at the bar by the front window and Moses walked down to wait on them. Hardy covered Frannie's hand with his own, gave it a gentle squeeze, put on an apologetic face and reached for the beeper on his belt. 'Sorry. I meant to leave it in the car.'

  'Now, though, since you didn't…' But she was used to it – the constant interruptions were always unwelcome, but they had ceased to be an issue. When they got to wherever they were going for dinner, she would remember to have him take the beeper off his belt, leave it in the glove compartment. She put her hand over his now, kissed him lightly on the cheek. 'It's OK, go ahead.'

  He used the phone behind the bar, which he figured was the last working rotary in California. The callback number wasn't immediately familiar to him, and this was in itself a bit unusual – Hardy's legal mind might only be decent, but he had almost an idiot savant's knack for remembering telephone numbers, and this one seemed new to him.

  'Banks,' he heard. 'Homicide.'

  'Inspector. This is Dismas Hardy. Thanks for getting back to me.'

  The voice wasn't enthusiastic. 'Sure. I try to return calls. What can I do for you? You said the lieutenant…' He didn't finish the sentence.

  'I talked to Abe this afternoon. He said maybe this Cullen Alsop thing is related to Elaine. To Cole Burgess.'

  'Maybe.' The voice wasn't any more inviting.

  'I understand the gun story felt a little funny to you. And now the overdose the day he gets out…?' At some point, Hardy hoped Banks was going to catch up and run with it, but he also knew the cause of the reluctance, and respected it. 'Somebody might have wanted to shut him up.'

  'Possible.' Banks was noncommittal. 'Strout's leaning toward calling it an accident.'

  'What do you think?' Hardy let a silence develop. This wasn't working. He wasn't getting through to the young man. Professionally, they were still on opposite sides. He had to find a way to bridge the gap.

  Banks said, 'Well…' About to end the call.

  Hardy cut him off. 'Remember the other day at the funeral, Inspector? Asking Abe if there was anything you could do?'

  No response.

  'This might be it. All I'm asking is give me a half-hour.'

  Another long pause. Then the voice more matter-of-fact, a decision reached. 'I got an appointment coming up I've got to make. It's on this. After that I thought I'd go down and see the lieutenant around the end of visiting hours, maybe nine, nine thirty.'

  'As it happens, I was going to stop by and see him after dinner myself.'

  It was a way for Ridley to justify what he was about to do. That appeared to be what he needed. 'So it would just be a coincidence if we both got there around the same time?'

  The weather had cleared and warmed up slightly. Not that it was balmy by any stretch, but the biting damp wind of the past week or so had abated, and now the air was calm, the stars bright overhead.

  Hardy and Frannie had miraculously gotten a table without advance reservations at Pan Y Vino, a long-time favorite Italian place just up from the Marina, and when they finished, they decided to take a walk. They'd already discussed what seemed to be every possible permutation in the lives of their children, Frannie's progress with her school applications – she'd gotten them all off – the terrific food they were eating, Moses, Abe, his health and his children. Even Treya Ghent. And what had that been about, the degree of personal involvement in her showing up at the hospital?

  This was what date night was for – to catch up, to stay in touch. Personal lives.

  They were holding hands, strolling with the mass of other pedestrians up Union Street. It wasn't yet eight thirty. Occasionally, they would stop and look in a window at something. Eventually, Frannie squeezed her husband's hand. Smiling, she looked over at him.

  'I'm sorry? What?' he asked.

  'I was saying, "… and then my grandmother died". I think that must have been what you heard, that woke you up.'

  'Sorry,' he said again. 'I guess I'm a little distracted.'

  But she didn't want to criticize him. 'All right,' she said, 'you've been the soul of patience. We can declare the date over if you want, talk about whatever it is.'

  Out of the topics they could talk about, in the first years of date night, one had come to predominate – Hardy's work. From time to time, he would become so involved in his cases that he would suggest they drive together to crime scenes, or maybe stop by the jail to interview his client. They would theorize cases to death over meals that neither of them tasted.

  Finally, they had outlawed discussing his cases during date night. It still did creep in but generally the law was respected and, in fact, treasured.

  But she was right. Tonight Hardy's input to the various family and personal discussions was
minimal at best. Distracted was hardly the word. She already knew that he and Freeman had made some crucial strides on one of his cases at lunch. There was some inkling that much of his involvement in several cases might be related somehow. He would be seeing Glitsky within the hour, getting new information from Ridley Banks. The connection between the relationships might become clear. It was all he could think about.

  'I just don't want to waste Ridley's time with stupid questions,' he said by way of explanation. 'He's not going to want to help me without Abe anyway. I don't want to wind up threatening him, getting him all defensive, scaring him away.'

  'How would you do that?'

  'I start talking about the videotape on Cole, the confession, and he's gone.'

  'Why?'

  'Because Ridley's the one who got it. He's still standing by it, but this new overdose makes it a little funky. He doesn't really know why and neither do I, but it's there. And also, Abe's lost his job over it and then nearly died. All that may or may not be related, but either way, Ridley's conflicted.'

  'And you hope to straighten him out?'

  Hardy nodded. 'With my decent legal mind, at least identify the issues. Maybe.'

  'Which are?'

  He stopped walking and stepped out of the stream of foot traffic. It was still chilly enough that his sigh produced a visible plume of vapor. 'That's the problem. I don't know, Fran. I've been wracking my brain all day, especially since I ran into Dash Logan connected with Elaine, which of course is Cole's case. But I'm not convinced he's killed anybody. And I really don't see any connection between Elaine and Rich McNeil. None of it makes any sense. None of it relates except for Logan, who seems to be in the middle of all of it.'

  'Well,' Frannie said, 'if Abe's got the doubts, and now Ridley – and neither of them are exactly pro-defense – then maybe you'd better start considering that Cole is telling you the truth.'

  'It wasn't unconsciousness? He just happened upon her after somebody else did her?'

  She shrugged. 'It could have happened.'

  '"Could have happened" doesn't meet much of a legal standard, Fran. I can't argue that in front of a jury.'

  'How about just a judge? How about at the hearing?'

  Hardy didn't even have to think – he shook his head no. 'The hearing's a formality. The standard is probable cause, not reasonable doubt. Torrey demonstrates that – and the confession alone ought to be enough on that score – and that's it. We go to trial.'

  'I know, I know, but listen…' Her eyes were alight with the idea. 'There's something about this particular case that's causing all kinds of confusion even among you professionals, right? You've got to admit that. I mean, Abe getting put on leave over it? Come on, that is not normal. Now Ridley Banks agreeing to talk to you. Even you yourself and your decent mind.'

  'Decent legal mind. The rest of it's often pretty indecent.'

  'OK, still. I'm saying you might be able to get a judge to feel that way too. Not a jury, but one person. If you could get all the questions out in front of one of them.'

  His eyes had turned inward. A couple of times he seemed about to speak, but the thread eluded him. Finally, he looked at her. 'The problem is, Fran… that presupposes that he didn't do it after all, and I think he did.' He put up a hand to stop her from breaking in. 'I'm not saying he meant to. I don't think he planned it. Maybe even as he did it, he didn't get it. But I'll tell you something: he sure had means, motive, and opportunity. He's got the opposite of an alibi.' His voice was becoming harsh, unyielding. 'He's exactly the kind of pathetic loser who makes mistakes and ruins lives and then really, truly wishes he hadn't done it. Maybe even to the point of believing his own lies. But frankly, I think he deserves to be punished for it. Not death. Not even life without since nobody else in San Francisco gets it. That's why I took the case at all. But he ought to get a good long spell in the slammer, during which maybe he'll come to have a little bit of a clue.'

  'But probably not.'

  'Probably not,' Hardy agreed. 'Law of averages, probably not.'

  'So you're going to try for unconsciousness?'

  His eyes flashed impatiently. 'And that, Fran, would be a major triumph.'

  'Even if he didn't do it?'

  'He did do it!'

  'He says he didn't, doesn't he?'

  'Everybody says they didn't. Smart lawyers don't even ask.'

  'But if the best defense the law allows is proving he didn't kill Elaine, that he's telling the truth after all, don't you have to try for that? Otherwise, maybe you should give him to somebody else.'

  'I'm not giving him to anybody else!'

  She let him live with that for a second. 'When you talk to Abe and Ridley, maybe you ought to really listen to what they say.'

  'That was my actual plan, believe it or not. What did you think I was going to do?'

  She looked into his eyes. Her voice was gentle, without any threat in it. 'I thought you might be looking for something to argue, not something to believe.'

  She rarely saw any sign of her husband's Irish temper. It surprised her that he was on the edge of losing it now. Over Cole Burgess? It made no sense unless the boy had come to represent something beyond himself.

  She reached a hand out and touched his arm. 'What's going on, Dismas?' she asked.

  'I'm not looking for something to believe, that's for sure.' His voice was harsh.

  'Then what are you arguing against? What's so terrifying?'

  'What's so terrifying?' he snapped back. 'How can you even ask me that? That's what I want to know. You can't envision our sweet little Vin where Cole is someday? Or even the Beck? You don't think that's terrifying?'

  She tightened her grip on his arm. 'That isn't going to happen, Dismas. That doesn't make any sense.'

  'That's my damn point, Frannie. It doesn't have to make any sense. It just happens sometimes. It just happens.'

  And suddenly the source of his terror was clear to her. Educated, white, middle-class, raised by caring parents, Cole Burgess was Dismas's own private vision of the devil, the personification of everything he feared and could not control. Their own children might turn out just like Cole if they weren't ever vigilant with them, and maybe even if they were. And beyond that, the dangers everywhere in the modern world – the threat of random violence, terror out of the dark night. The tragedy inherent in every moment of temporary weakness – why the struggle must never end, not for an instant.

  She lifted her hand up to touch his face, and he backed off, by all signs angry at her. During his little speech, his color had gone progressively to a deep red. To the Union Street crowd, it probably seemed that they were having a fight.

  'Dismas?' she said softly.

  He was furious. Tears of rage had come to his eyes and he was determinedly blinking them back. She stepped into him, put her arms around his back, held him. 'It's all right,' she said. 'Everything's going to be all right.'

  It was Old Home Week around Abe's bed again. Isaac had picked up Jacob after his arrival from Milan, and the two of them came straight from the airport to the hospital. Nat and Orel were already there – the first time the whole family had been together in nearly two years. There were only the five of them, and that was just as well. Since the word was out about Elaine, there was a lot to talk about.

  At a little before nine, Hardy and Frannie showed up, looking a bit the worse for wear. They had both cheered slightly at the sight of Jacob, as they had with Isaac the night before, but after a while the edge between them appeared again. It didn't help that Hardy was expecting Ridley Banks to come and talk about Cullen Alsop, and that he never appeared. And with the boys and Nat there, it wasn't a good time to talk murder cases anyway.

  By nine forty-five, everyone had gone home.

  Glitsky leaned back into his bed and closed his eyes. Tonight, he was tired. His groin throbbed where they had inserted the angiogram into his femoral artery. The blisters on his chest – mementos of the defibrillation – itched uncomfortably. T
hey had him on some blood-thinning medication and he still felt wiped out from sedatives.

  He fancied that he could feel his heart, that the presence of all of his sons and his father tonight had filled it almost beyond its capacity. Early on, before the Hardys came and after the first flurry of questions and answers about Elaine, he'd asked Jacob if he would sing them all a song with his newly-trained Italian voice, then surprised him not by asking for anything from the opera repertoire, but for 'Unchained Melody'. He'd sung it so beautifully that the nursing staff and other visitors seeing patients had come into the room, applauded when he finished.

  The melody came back to him now. It had been Flo's song, but the image now was not of his past wife. He opened his eyes, grabbed his book, took out Treya's card and reached for the phone.

  26

  Still in his scrubs, Jonas Walsh commanded his own table in the St Mary's cafeteria. His newspaper was spread out over every inch of the available surface area, all the sections separated. His tray held the remains of his mid-morning snack – the empty bowl that had held his mixed fruit, the plate for the dry toast, three empty juice glasses. He sat back at some distance from the table, an ankle resting on a knee. He held his cup of coffee out at arm's length. For one man, he took up a lot of room. It was ten thirty in the morning and his four scheduled hernia surgeries had all gone without incident, as they always did.

  Nevertheless, his posture reflected a great deal of frustration. He hated being out here, but the idiot operating room schedulers had been unable to book in all his patients, even though he had them lined up waiting. There'd been a couple of cancellations and the hospital hadn't been able to fill the damn time; and when you only have two surgery days a week, you'd better make sure you pack them in. But now, instead of ten hernias today, he had only eight – which meant thirty-two hundred dollars out the window. Plus he had to endure a much-despised break for a couple of hours before he could start making more money with another four in the afternoon. At this rate, he was never going to pay off his loans.