The Hearing

by John Lescroart

  Abe was brooding and Hardy, tired of it, decided to let him. But after a few blocks, he spoke again. 'How do you know? Did you ask her?'

  'I didn't have to. It was obvious.'

  'So one of them was wearing a sign? One of those sandwich board things, maybe?'

  Glitsky nodded. 'Might as well have.' He paused. 'We're sitting in the window at David's and Jackman comes walking by down Geary. He sees her and they both light up like Christmas trees. He comes inside, she's off her stool, next to him… then it's like, oh yeah, this is that cop I was telling you about. Jackman sticks around, orders a sandwich. Then after I leave tonight, she's off to his office.'

  'Obvious,' Hardy said.

  Another shrug. 'You had to be there.'

  'I was at the hospital the other night. I thought that was obvious, too.'

  A glance. 'What? Me?'

  'And her.'

  'Well, we both read it wrong, then.'

  'If you say so. But if it were me and it mattered even a little, I'd ask her.' They'd come out along California Street and were getting to the turn for Glitsky's block.

  'How am I supposed to do that? What am I supposed to say? She's with him.'

  'OK,' Hardy repeated, making the turn. 'Fine.'

  'She is.'

  'I'm not arguing with you. I hope they're happy.' He pulled up in front of Abe's duplex, turned in his seat. 'You pick up the telephone, dial her number, asks if she wants to go to dinner or something. We call this a date. If she's involved with somebody else, she says no. If she likes you, she says yes. It's a simple concept. Even in your enfeebled state, I think you can grasp it.'

  Glitsky shook his head, disagreeing. 'We've got to work together in the next few weeks, Diz. It would be too awkward. She'll say no anyway.'

  'And I wouldn't blame her. But you never know, and you won't if you don't ask.' Hardy saw that Abe was suffering with it, and his voice softened. 'You know how you told me the other night how you wished you'd talked to Elaine when you had the chance?'

  'That was different.'

  'Only in the sense that everything is different from everything else. It's also a lot the same. I know it's not your preferred means of communicating, but talking isn't so bad once in a while. What's she going to do, laugh at you? I don't think so. Worst case, she'll be flattered you asked.' He brought a palm down on the arm rest between them. 'All right, that's my spiel. I'm done. You want me to swing by in the morning?'

  For another beat, Glitsky didn't move. Then he bobbed his head and pulled the latch for his door. Out in the street, he leaned back in. 'OK.'

  Hardy had a small patch of grass in front of his house. It grew behind a white picket fence and was bordered on the back by a flower garden that they tried to keep up, even during the winter months. A short walkway bisected the lawn and led up to an inviting porch. His house was the only single-family dwelling on the block and its curb appeal, to Hardy, was enormous. Tonight, though, after the four-block walk in the fog-bound darkness from the nearest parking place he'd been able to find, he considered tearing out the whole thing and paving it over.

  He really thought he might do it except of course, that the downside – other than loss of his lawn – was that someone someday would park in his own private spot, maybe even by mistake. It wouldn't matter – Hardy would have to kill him.

  The porch lights were on, as were those in the front window – their living room. He opened his door, smelled the oak fire burning in his fireplace, put his heavy briefcase down.

  'Daddy!'

  Rebecca came flying out around the corner and had her arms around him. Then Vincent, nearly knocking him over. He enfolded them both in his arms, dragged them laughing a few steps, rough-housing. Frannie was coming up the hallway with a glass of wine in one hand and what looked suspiciously like a martini in the other. 'What did I do?' he asked.

  As it turned out, he'd done nothing special. Frannie had lit the fire and the kids were laying on the floor in front of it writing up their Valentine's Day cards for everyone in each of their classes. She'd called out for Chinese food, which would be there any minute, so she wasn't cooking. She'd like a glass of wine. If her husband got home at his normal time, she thought he'd enjoy a martini, too.

  Handing him the glass, she kissed him. 'Sometimes it just works.'

  It continued to work. The phone didn't ring once. The dinner arrived punctually and was delicious. Neither Rebecca nor Vincent had any kind of crisis, and they were both in bed by nine thirty. The name Cole Burgess never came up.

  In the age of mangled care, Dr Campion proved himself extraordinary. He had called three times during the day and, receiving no answer, finally got worried enough to decide to see for himself. He got to Abe's duplex at a little after dark – it turned out that he made about one house call a week. The three boys and Nat were already home, which made all the Glitskys except the one he wanted to see. The doctor was probably more angry than all of them, but it was close.

  Campion couldn't believe his patient wasn't home, but when that message finally made its way through, he reiterated his instructions, underlining them for everyone's benefit. This was no joke. He'd released Abe from the hospital, yes, but he wasn't out of danger. His instructions had been that Glitsky could walk around inside his house, but should take it easy and avoid all stress. There were no circumstances the doctor could imagine that could justify Abe being outside, presumably stressing about a murder case. The walk down his twelve front steps alone…

  His heart had been seriously weakened, the muscle damaged – it was still not clear how badly. There was a reasonable chance of another serious, even fatal, attack. He should religiously be taking the blood thinning medication that was on the table next to his bed, its seal unbroken. Campion waited around for half an hour, then finally left his cellphone number and left.

  When Abe did finally walk in the door, it was to the Riot Act. They all wanted to know what he thought he was doing. Did he want to die?

  Nobody considered that what he'd done was even remotely defensible. They spent fifteen minutes repeating all of Dr Campion's horror stories, then marched him into his room, where they watched him take his pills, made him get into bed. Much to everyone's surprise, he admitted to complete exhaustion and fell asleep almost immediately. The rest of the family had a pow-wow in the kitchen and decided that they'd spell each other keeping an eye on him.

  He wasn't going anywhere. Not without the doctor's permission.

  Frannie kissed him. 'You might not be as good as you once were, but you're as good once as you ever were.'

  It was sometime a little after ten. They were in their relatively new upstairs bedroom. It gave them privacy they would have considered unimaginable in the old configuration of rooms – theirs adjoining their two children's downstairs. Now they still might not be able to scream with rapture, but the occasional sound of pleasure could occur without it being followed by one of the kids knocking at the door, asking if they were OK. Did somebody get hurt?

  'Thank you, I think.' He took her earlobe between his lips and gave it a tug. 'You're not so bad yourself.' Then, after a moment, quietly, 'You're my one.'

  They lay contentedly in spoon fashion for a while, then when her breathing had become regular, he kissed her again, extricated himself, and turned onto his other side. The last embers crackled in the bedroom fireplace. He closed his eyes.

  Somewhere far away a siren screamed. It was coming closer.

  Abruptly, his heart racing, he sat up and threw off the covers. It wasn't a siren. It was the phone on the desk across the room. Frannie, still asleep, shifted behind him, made some noise. He got to it before it rang again.

  'Yo.'

  'Mr Hardy? This is Jon Ingalls.'

  It took a moment. One of his new team. The clock in front of him read 11:11. 'What's up, Jon?'

  'I'm in the car now. I just left Jeff Elliot's.'

  'His house?'

  'Yeah. He was talking about quitting. He's super pissed.'r />
  'Quitting what? The paper? What for?'

  Ingalls told him. This afternoon, the Democrat had come out with a story suggesting that when Cole had been staying with Jeff's family, he had undoubtedly used heroin there in Jeff's presence, if not with him. It was the most crass and unsubstantiated attack – ridiculous to anyone who knew Jeff – but the Chronicle's editor, Parker Whitelaw, had called Jeff right in. He wasn't to write another word on the Burgess case. Jeff had tried to explain that his connection to Cole was above-board and strictly as family. Whitelaw didn't care. Jeff's credibility as an objective reporter, he said, was compromised. With this kind of accusation in the city's political atmosphere, a simple denial wasn't going to be enough – there would have to be some show, at least, of an investigation. The entire future of his column might be in jeopardy.

  'Anyway,' Ingalls went on, 'Jeff thinks Pratt set this up.'

  'I think I'd agree with him. So what's he going to do?'

  'He doesn't know.'

  Hardy sat holding the phone. Getting involved with this case seemed to be bad for job security. First Abe, now Jeff. It was intriguing, maybe even a little scary.

  'Mr Hardy?' Ingalls asked. 'I didn't wake you up just now or anything, did I?'

  Hardy laughed. 'Are you kidding? I was just suiting up for my midnight run.'

  Halfway to morning Hardy was still awake.

  The DA's interference in what was increasingly becoming every part not just of the Burgess case, but of what seemed like his whole life, had become a real issue.

  Now, sitting downstairs at the kitchen table, he was writing names and drawing circles and arrows on a legal pad. McNeil, Torrey, Alsop, Burgess, Logan, Elaine. He wasn't anywhere near yet to taking notes – it was all too ephemeral. Still…

  He looked down at the paper and wrote another name. Freeman's girlfriend's client – Abby Oberlin, had definitely received a settlement offer from Torrey, and that settlement would profit Logan. But so what? Lawyers profited from settlements every day. Except that Logan was also connected to Elaine, and therefore to Cole. And since Logan represented Manny Gait, he was involved with McNeil, too.

  God! Hardy wished that Logan had been Cullen Alsop's lawyer, but that had been that nice kid this morning, Westbrook. He didn't know what it would mean – Logan knowing Cullen – but the symmetry of it was appealing as hell.

  Reluctantly, he drew a line through Cullen's name.

  Another thought struck him and he hastily scratched out his own client's name. If, as appeared to be the case, they were working on the assumption that Cole was innocent…

  McNeil, Oberlin, Torrey, Elaine, Logan.

  It was a small town, circling back on itself. Rather like a noose.

  28

  Isaac Glitsky was adamant. 'He's not going out anywhere. Doctor's orders.'

  'But yesterday-'

  'Yesterday,' Jacob interjected from behind his brother, 'he snuck out. Made believe he was going to bed, sent us out to have a nice day, then went out and tried to kill himself. Can you believe that?'

  Hardy nodded. 'Sounds like your father.'

  'He's been asleep for twelve hours,' Isaac said. 'His body wants to recover even if he doesn't.'

  Hardy was confused. 'I thought… he told me… I mean, they let him out.'

  'To go home, maybe putter around in the house, avoid stress. That's all.' Isaac had his arms crossed over his chest. 'Let me guess, he left that part out.'

  'He said he was fine. Cleared. Ready to rock and roll.'

  'Which he is not,' Jacob said. 'Maybe in a week.'

  'Maybe.' The older brother wasn't making any promises. 'The heart's got to heal before he stresses it again. You'd think that would occur to him.'

  'You'd think so,' Hardy agreed. He shook his head, frustrated. 'I love your father, but the man can be a moron. Tell him I said so, then sit on him if you have to.'

  Glitsky might be reluctant to call Treya, but Hardy had no problem with it. It had occurred to him that, since everybody was essentially working to the same end, it made sense that everyone do it in the same place. He'd called her at Rand and Jackman first thing this Friday morning and she had agreed. She'd be delighted to come to his offices and help facilitate the work of the associates. She might even have some ideas of her own. Hardy told her he'd be happy to use them.

  Amy Wu stood an inch over five feet tall. She had large enough breasts so that people rarely noticed the bit of thickness at her waist. Half-Chinese and half-black, she had an unusual and extraordinarily compelling face. Under a small and flattened nose, her sensuous lips might have been collagened but were not. Her complexion was dark honey, small-pored, unlined. She was twenty-six years old and had never bought a drink in her life without someone asking for her identification. There was a heaviness to the lids under dark brown, almost liquid eyes, although she was rarely taken for an Asian. Thick, straight, shining black hair cascaded a few inches past her shoulders. At the office, she dressed in a woman's business suit, but today she was in jeans and hiking boots, a black turtleneck sweater.

  She'd already spoken to five students who had been in Elaine's moot court class. They had all directed her to a single student. Muhammed Malouf Adek was more than happy to talk to her, as what young man would not be. He was sitting on the floor in one of the hallways at Hastings, a book open on his legs. He was eating an apple. Amy hovered over him until he looked up. 'What are you studying?' she asked, smiling down.

  In fifteen minutes, they were in the cafeteria. She told him a version of the truth about who she was and the general reason she was here – to talk about Elaine. It didn't seem to bother him.

  'People say that you and she were close at one time.'

  He shrugged. 'She was my teacher.'

  'I'd understood it was a little more than that.' Her eyebrows went up ingenuously.

  'All right. They have a mentor program here. I signed up for that. I was doing poorly in my other courses.' Muhammed looked at her with a kind of challenge in his eyes.

  She pegged his age at perhaps a year older than she was – maybe he was even thirty, which was slightly old for a law student. But his eyes were too bright, too hard and piercing. His beard was short, extremely thick, almost like wool. His teeth were white, but very uneven, and his hygiene was poor – he hadn't washed his hair in a while; his jeans looked as though they would stand up by themselves; it appeared he'd worn the brown shirt for most of the week.

  'And you became friends?'

  'I don't know about that. We did not go out.'

  Amy wrinkled up her face, confusion all over it.

  He couldn't take his eyes off her. 'What's the matter?'

  'Only that I've heard differently. I wanted to talk to somebody who knew Elaine pretty well, and if that's not you…' She made to get up.

  He gripped her arm above the wrist. 'We had coffee a few times,' he said. 'But there wasn't anything… between us.' Realizing what he'd done, he released his grip. 'What do you want to know about Elaine for, anyway? She was not what she pretended to be.'

  'And what was that?'

  He hesitated, decided against answering.

  'Muhammed,' she said. 'You've heard she died last week, haven't you?'

  He nodded. 'It was the will of Allah.'

  'Well, yes, but it was maybe a little more than that. Somebody killed her.'

  He sat up abruptly. 'That was not me. They arrested that other man.'

  'I know. No one is saying it was you. I'm not saying that.' She smiled again. 'Please, Muhammed, we're just talking, all right?'

  'But what are we talking about?'

  'We're talking about who she was.' She leaned in closer to him. 'We were thinking of some kind of a memorial, maybe a statue, something like that. It will be very nice, out in the lobby, as a tribute to her.'

  'To Elaine?' Amy realized that Treya had chosen a perfect cover story for them. Clearly infuriated, Muhammed's eyes were burning.

  'Yes. Elaine. But you know, it's politi
cal. We would not want to go to all that trouble and expense if there was some embarrassing… if she-'

  'She was a whore. A liar and a whore. She believed in nothing.'

  'Well, surely-'

  He slammed the table. All around the room, other students looked up, startled out of their studies. Muhammed was oblivious of it. 'She pretended to be coming to Islam. I would read from the Koran, and she would nod, pretending. "Yes," she would say, "that's interesting. That's good." But it was all false. She was white inside. She sold her body for their money, for her doctor's money.' There was spittle on Muhammed's lips. His breath came in ragged little gulps.

  'When was the last time you saw her?'

  'She was here,' he rasped. 'She was always here.'

  'Here at the school?'

  'Yes.'

  'But I mean alone. Did you see her alone after she got engaged?'

  'I told her she had to stop. It was all a lie. She was tormenting me.'

  'Stop what? You mean call off her marriage?'

  'No. Teaching here. Coming here.'

  'That was tormenting you?'

  He nodded. 'Every time I saw her. I knew she was laughing at me that I had believed her. I told her she had to stop.'

  'When was this?'

  'This new semester. Just now.' He gripped her hand again, so hard that it hurt her. 'You must not make this thing, this memorial. She was a whore. She was laughing at Allah and, of course-' The eyes. The eyes were crazy. He laughed. 'That is what happened, you know. He put an end to that.'

  'Abe? Are you all right?'

  'I'm under house arrest. My boys.'

  'Dismas said you were in bed.'

  'That would be accurate, but the prescription wasn't bed rest. The doctor just doesn't want to see me out walking the streets, but he'd actually like me to move around a little here.'

  'But today? Your heart-'

  'Is pumping away even as we speak. I'm sorry I didn't call you earlier myself. I just woke up.'

  'That's a long sleep. It's almost eleven o'clock. Are you sure you're OK? Something else didn't happen, did it?'