The First Law

by John T Lescroart

  On the television, the story continued, running through a cursory review of the related killings and a tantalizing film clip of Crime Scene Investigators removing allegedly "highly significant evidence" from the scene, and closing with the not entirely surprising news, though no less unwelcome for that, that the chief suspect for that crime and also the murders last week of Sam Silverman and Matthew Creed, was John Holiday.

  He finally glanced up again at the mention of his name.

  His four-year-old mug shot filled the screen as the anchor finished up with the words that a warrant had been issued for his arrest and that he should be considered armed and dangerous. As they cut to the next story, Michelle walked to the set, picked the remote off the top of it, killed the power.

  Head in his hands, Holiday still rocked his whole body on the floor—back and forth, side to side.

  "John?" She reached over and touched his shoulder.

  "John, are you okay?"

  When he looked up, she wasn't sure he even saw her.

  His eyes shone with panic. His voice, when it came, was a suddenly ravaged and hoarse whisper. "I don't believe Clint and Randy are dead. They can't be just dead."

  She lowered herself down to the floor, facing him. He kept shaking his head from side to side. She reached out and put a hand on his knee, and she left it there.

  The sun descended enough so that a few bars of sunlight through the blinds inched up the wall over her bed. A dog barked somewhere in the neighborhood, the call was taken up by another; then both died away.

  Eventually, Holiday cleared his throat one time, again, didn't meet her eyes, then began quietly, matter-of-factly.

  "What I do, see, is find somebody like you and then try to fuck it all up, cheat on you or do something else you can't forgive ..."

  "Shut up," she said. "Just shut up. I get it. You don't think I get it? I know what you do, what you always do. You know why? 'Cause I do it, too. It keeps things manageable, doesn't it, making people you might love hate you when they start to get close? So my question to you is, 'What are you going to do now?' I'm talking with you and me."

  "You told me to get out."

  "Right. And you didn't leave. You had most of an hour.

  What does that mean about us? Anything? Or were you just afraid to go out because of ... because of all this?

  And don't tell me you needed to find out what they were saying on the television."

  "No."

  "What then? If your plan is to hang around and have a few more fights and go out on me to make me hate you, I can save you some trouble. Just walk out now, no hard feelings. Because do it again and I will hate you. I promise." She stood up and went back over to the window, checked the blinds again. She turned back to him. "You didn't kill any of those people, did you?"

  "No. I've never killed anybody."

  "Do you know who did?"

  He nodded soberly. "The same people who planted whatever they found in my apartment." He looked up at her. "I don't understand this at all, Michelle. The last I heard, the police were talking to Clint about Mr. Silverman, and now they're both dead."

  She'd been pacing and now stopped over by the bed.

  "That lawyer who defended you last time ..." Suddenly, her hands came up. "Christ, I don't believe I'm talking about this. Lawyers and killers and planted evidence. I don't want this stuff in my life, John. I really don't."

  He got up and came over to her. "It's not my first choice either, Michelle. I'm not making this happen. I don't want to be around it, either. I don't even know what it is. If this thing ever ends, maybe I'll make some changes."

  "Maybe. Some. Wow."

  "All right, not maybe. Definitely, and maybe a lot. But first there's this, wouldn't you agree? What were you asking me about my lawyer?"

  "Just that aren't you still friends?"

  "So where are you now, John?"

  "At a friend's. I locked up the Ark and I'm not going home."

  "Ah, intelligent behavior at last. And so what do you want me to do?"

  "I don't know. Talk to somebody. Whatever you do. I didn't do this, Diz, none of it. I loved Clint. I liked Sam and Matt. I don't know how anything got into my apartment. This whole thing is too weird."

  "I haven't had much luck with the too-weird-to-be-real defense, John." Hardy sighed. "All right. You said there was a warrant? For your arrest?"

  "That's what was on the news. You can check it out for yourself."

  "I will. But in the meanwhile, I want you to think about something. If in fact there's a warrant out on you, my only option as your lawyer is to advise you to turn yourself in.

  If you don't, I can't have anything more to do with you."

  "Turn myself in for what?"

  "See if you can guess, John."

  "But I didn't do it."

  "All right."

  "You don't believe me?"

  "That's beside the point. If there's already a warrant for your arrest, about the best I can do is arrange your surrender."

  "That's you the lawyer, Diz. What about you my friend?"

  "I'm afraid we're the same person, John. Look, if you won't take my advice, why don't we both think about it overnight? You think about it, I'll think about it. One of us might come up with something."

  "What about now?"

  "What about it?"

  "I come over now to your place. We get something figured out."

  "Then if I don't call the police, I'm harboring a fugitive and lose my license. And though I love you like a brother, I couldn't do you any good if I'm disbarred." He paused.

  "Look, why don't you call me at my office tomorrow morning? Something might have changed by then. I'll talk to the DA, see what they're going with. Meanwhile, you say nobody knows where you are? I'm guessing you're not that uncomfortable. Just lie low."

  "Diz ... this isn't exactly what I was hoping to hear."

  "What can I tell you, John? It's the best I can do."

  Watching his television at home, Nat Glitsky had heard the news of the awful Tenderloin murders and then of the arrest warrant that had been issued in Sam Silverman's death.

  Now he was in his son's kitchen, sitting at the table having tea with his dessert, Abe's day-old macaroons. For the first time since Rachel's birth, the Hardys hadn't shown up yesterday at the conclusion of their Date Night, so there was a full plate of them.

  Nat dipped his cookie into his tea, blew on it, put the softened morsel to his granddaughter's lips. "Your daughter, she loves these," he said.

  "Everybody loves them." Treya was standing behind her husband's chair, her hands on Abe's shoulders. "Dismas Hardy thinks Abe should go into business making them.

  Abe's Manna Macaroons."

  "Such a name," Nat said. "A name is an important thing.

  That Dismas, he's not so dumb."

  Abe liked that. "I'll tell him you said so. He's a glutton for praise. 'Not so dumb' ought to make his week."

  Nat teased Rachel's lips with the remainder of his macaroon, then brought it to his own mouth and popped it in.

  The baby's little hand reached out. Her face fell in shocked surprise. A second later, her smile returned as a fresh cookie appeared in Nat's grasp. He let her grab it and they played tug of war for a second or two before he let it go.

  She laughed in pure joy, stuffing the spoils of victory into her mouth. "Such a good girl," Nat said. "I see great things.

  Someday she becomes the owner of Abraham's Manna Macaroons."

  "Abe's," Treya said. "Not Abraham's."

  "Shorter," Glitsky said. "Punchier. Maybe I will go into baking after all." Treya had come around behind Rachel and gave him a look.

  He gave her the same look back. "Baking's a noble profession. Bakers have been baking probably longer than cops have been ..."

  "Copping?" Treya offered a tight smile. "It won't be too much longer. A couple of months, he said."

  "Two months can be a long time if you're in thumbscrews."

  Nat
nearly sprang forward out of his chair leaning over the table. "He says thumbscrews, plural. I don't even see one." He sat back down as though he'd proven something.

  "And for all the moaning and groaning, who did they call as soon as they knew about Sam?"

  "I believe that was Lieutenant Glitsky," Treya said. "The pariah of Bryant Street."

  "Courtesy only."

  "Courtesy, he says." Nat wasn't buying.

  "I heard him." Neither was Treya. She finally sat down at the table. "And since the only thing of interest and importance in the world, and hence the only thing worth talking about—never mind the precious lives of infants—is a homicide investigation, it just occurred to me that I'll bet this is why Dismas and Frannie didn't come by last night.

  He's still John Holiday's attorney, isn't he?"

  Abe nodded. "I would think so."

  But Nat exploded. "Wait a minute. What am I hearing here? This man who killed Sam? He's with Dismas?"

  "He was," Abe said. "I'd bet he still is."

  "He's trying to get him off?"

  "I haven't heard Holiday's even been arrested yet, Dad.

  But when he is, yeah. That's what Diz does."

  Nat sat unhappily with this intelligence for a second.

  "He'd do this, this defense work, for a man who's killed four people. Did you see what this animal did to those men last night?"

  He shook his head. "No. I'd only heard they'd been killed."

  "Only killed would have been mercy," Nat said.

  He went on to tell his son some of the details he'd picked up. When he finished, Treya made a face of disgust, then asked, "And Holiday is wanted for all of these murders?"

  Abe picked up something in her tone. He wasn't going to pursue it aloud right here. But in the past year, he and Treya had met John Holiday a few times at the Hardys'.

  He had seemed okay to Abe; Treya had positively liked him. And Glitsky very much trusted his wife's instincts. He had seen enough of killings and murderers that he considered almost anyone, under the right conditions, capable of the act. But he'd never seen a sign nor heard from Hardy that Holiday used drugs, the great instigator of horrible, irrational violence. If Holiday had been robbing Silverman's store and got interrupted, if Creed had chased him into a blind alley, maybe ...

  But the scenario with Terry and Wills, as his father had just explained it?

  "What?" Nat asked, seeing the look between them.

  Abe hesitated. Then, "Nothing," he said.

  16

  Rebecca sat down to the plate of scrambled eggs her father had cooked for her. This morning, he'd cooked them for Frannie and Vincent as well, but neither of them typically appeared at the breakfast table until ten minutes after the Beck. By this time, whatever hot meal Hardy had prepared would have cooled—to him, cold scrambled eggs were an affront to nature—although his wife and son didn't seem to notice, much less mind.

  His daughter took a first bite, said, "Yum!" then looked around. She didn't miss much and wasn't easy to fool.

  "Where's the paper?" she asked her father.

  He casually sipped his coffee. "I don't know."

  She put down her fork. "What's in it?"

  "What do you mean? What's in what?"

  "The paper."

  "I just said I didn't know where it was."

  She gave a theatrical sigh. "As if."

  "As if," he repeated, striving to match the teenage inflection.

  She ignored that. "As if you didn't go out to the porch and get it like you do every single morning. Is it one of your clients?"

  It was his turn to sigh. He and Frannie had discussed it, along with the spin they would put on the smashed car window, and had decided it would be better for the kids if Hardy could get a few facts about the crimes for which John Holiday was likely to be arrested before he tried to explain it to them. Holiday wasn't exactly Uncle John yet, as Uncle Abe was, but he'd been by the house a few times in the past year, almost immediately endearing himself to both children, although for different reasons. He treated Rebecca in a sincere and courtly manner that flattered her vanity; Vincent he treated like a grown man, no kid stuff.

  He played catch with him, arm wrestled, had taken both Hardy men to 49er and Giants games.

  As the kids had gotten older, they had both become, as Hardy was, addicts of the morning Chronicle. Rebecca, particularly, loved the back page of the Scene section—the columnists and the In Crowd. Vincent, emulating his dad, would peruse Jeff Elliot's "CityTalk" column every day, but his favorite was Thursdays, when McHugh and Stienstra did their respective great stuff on the Outdoors page. Hardy and Frannie had promoted this interest from its first flowering over the comics—it was important to keep up on the news, on what people thought, what was happening in the world. Life wasn't lived in a vacuum.

  But there could also be the occasional drawback, as for example when your client and friend happened to be the main suspect in four murders, two of them incredibly grotesque.

  "Who is it?" Rebecca asked.

  Hardy threw a glance at the ceiling, then looked straight at her. "John Holiday."

  "No way!"

  "I'm afraid so."

  "Not John. There's no way, Dad. What are they saying he did?"

  She was going to find out anyway. Still, he hesitated, then decided it would be impossible to soften it. "They're saying he killed some people."

  "That's the stupidest thing I ever heard. John wouldn't ever kill anybody. He couldn't!"

  "I don't think so either."

  "And what you do mean, some?"

  "Four."

  "Four? Dad, come on."

  "It's not me, Beck. I don't think he killed anybody, either. But they found some evidence in his house ..." He stopped, reached out, and put a hand over hers. "Look.

  Beck. I'm going to talk to him today; then I'll have a better idea where we stand. But I didn't want you guys to see the paper this morning, okay? Two of the—"

  But her temper was up, and she cut him off. "What are they saying he did?"

  "Well, that's just it. You don't want to know. Not right now."

  "Yes I do!" Suddenly, she pushed back from the table.

  Her chair fell over and she was on her feet. "He's my friend, too. You can't censor us like that."

  Hardy knew he sounded like a pathetic adult. Still, he couldn't stop himself. "It's not censoring, it's ..."

  "It is, too. Where is it? I want to see."

  "Beck ..." He was up, too. "Please don't ..."

  But she ran by him, through the kitchen and out to the little anteroom in the back where they stored their recyclables. By the time he got to her, she'd already dug it out from where he'd buried it. She was emitting little whimpering noises, as an injured puppy might. Finally, she turned to him with her hand over her mouth, her eyes overflowing.

  "Oh God!" she said. "Oh God!"

  Then Vincent was standing behind them. "What? What's going on?"

  Most of an hour got killed while Hardy dropped his rental and picked up his own car with its new windshield. Again he stopped at the hospital. Again David had not improved.

  When he finally arrived at Sutter Street, it was close to nine o'clock, normally a bustling hour, but the office had an extremely subdued feel. The reception desk, Phyllis's domain, sat empty. As he stood there, one of the phones started ringing. He just let it go.

  The lights in the lobby had yet to be turned on. The door to the office at the far end of the lobby that housed Norma, the office manager, was closed and through the blinds he could see Phyllis in there. She seemed to be wiping at her eyes. The Solarium was empty. No secretaries were gossiping by the coffeemachine/Xerox area. Hardy took a few steps so he could see down the hallway, and was relieved to see people—secretaries and paralegals—at their desks, but most of the doors to the associates' cubicles seemed to be closed. People were hunkering down, lying low.

  One of the doors was open in the long hallway on the main floor, and he walked
down to it and looked inside.

  Amy Wu was at her desk, scribbling furiously on a yellow legal pad. Hardy knocked on the door and she looked up, smiling feebly out of politeness. "Hi. How's David?"

  "The same, I'm sorry to report. It's pretty quiet out here."

  "Is it? I haven't noticed. Jon—my paralegal?—he called in sick so I've been running pages to word processing all morning. I've got this memo that needs to be filed today, so—" Suddenly she stopped, put her pencil all the way down. "I'm sorry. Who cares, right? How are you doing?

  What happened to your hand?"

  He held it up. "Stupid accident. Me, I'm trying to get motivated to go upstairs and face some work."

  "Join the club. I think I'm the only one down here who's been able to get going on anything, and that's only because I'd fire myself if I was late on this filing after all the work I've already done." She motioned with her head. "Everybody else ... well, you noticed."

  He nodded. "I can't blame anybody. I feel the same way." He paused, took a breath, came out with it. "But I wonder if I could ask you a favor."

  "Then you'll owe me one, but sure. What is it?"

  "Could you could keep an eye out down here, give me a call when people start coming out their door, getting back to work?" At her questioning look, he added, "I was hoping I could tap some of the talent down here. I need some people in a hurry if we want to keep up with depositions on Panos. We're talking megahours."

  Something was going on in Wu's brain. Her eyes narrowed; then she nodded. "Sure. First sign of life, I'll buzz you."

  "Thanks. In fact, after you're done with your memo, maybe ..."

  But she was shaking her head no. "I can't, Diz. I'm overwhelmed, especially if David's out for a while. I've got to call Jon at home though. It just occurred to me, if he's not really sick, if he just decided this was a sinking ship ..."

  She stopped and sighed heavily. "If he dies, then what? Is all this keeping up with his work just me being stupid?"

  "He's still got clients, Amy. They're still going to need good lawyers. That's what David's been training you for, isn't it? It's why I need a few bodies around here. David or no David, Panos is going to be huge."