Dismas Hardy: Nothing But The Truth Part 7

Lou the Greek's was a dark bar/restaurant in the bas.e.m.e.nt of a bail bondsman's building across the street from the Hall of Justice. When Hardy was at court, he'd often stop into the place for some kind of lunch or a drink at the end of the day. Lou the Greek had married a Chinese woman and every day she would put together her own version of California-Asian cuisine.

All over the city, celebrity chefs were making their reputations and fortunes by marrying the finest ingredients from the Pacific Rim and creating stunning masterpieces - lobster ravioli in a lemon-gra.s.s-infused beurre blanc, tuna sas.h.i.+mi over tuscan white beans with thyme and wasabi mustard. Here at Lou's you'd get stuffed grape leaves with sweet-and-sour sauce, fried squid floating in a bowl of dip made from garlic, cuc.u.mbers, and yoghurt. Surprisingly, most of Lou's wife's stuff tasted pretty good even if the architecture of the plate, as they called it, left a little something to be desired.

But it was still hours from lunchtime, and Hardy wasn't there to eat anyway. He was tucked into a corner booth around a mug of coffee, waiting for David Freeman.

After leaving Frannie, he'd gone by Glitsky's empty office, leaving a note about Ron's disappearance, then went down to the third floor to confront Scott Randall personally - physically wasn't even out of the question.

Even though it was well past eight o'clock, there wasn't a soul in the entire DA's wing. And they wondered why their conviction rates were in the toilet. Convictions, h.e.l.l - they didn't even charge crimes in San Francisco at the same rate as in other counties.

So Hardy went to Lou's to wait, perhaps to try and think. He'd all but forgotten about the existence of the drinking breakfast crowd - guys and girls who were here when the door opened at six a.m. and had a couple of beers or a b.l.o.o.d.y Mary. He recognized half-a-dozen fringe players from around the Hall and wondered how many of them recognized their need for a morning pick-me-up as any kind of danger sign.

But being a supercilious b.a.s.t.a.r.d was an easy game to play. At the moment, he didn't feel he had much of a leg up on any of them. His wife was still in jail and all of his training, discipline, sobriety, and connections weren't doing her any good at all.

For half a second he considered downing a couple of shots of something, put himself into creative mode, and out of his linear head until some great idea presented itself. Except that those great wet ideas, and he'd had plenty, never seemed to make the cut after the hangover.

Lou was silent with a surly edge this morning, and that suited Hardy to his toes. He pushed his mug toward the side of the table and got it topped up just as David Freeman slid into the booth across from him. 'Hey Lou, give me one of those fast, would you? Three sugars, black. Christ, it's dark in here. You ever notice that, Diz?'

'The food looks better that way. What did Braun say?'

Freeman wasn't in any hurry to get to it. He fiddled with his jacket for a minute, and squirmed down into the leatherette seat. 'Marian. You know I took her out a couple of times when we were both starting out. Everybody called her Marian the librarian of course. Great legs.' Freeman sighed, remembering, then clucked sympathetically. 'She used to be a lot more fun.'

'We all did, David.'

'Not true. Take me, for example. I'm in my prime. Have been for a while, actually.'

'I'm happy for you,' Hardy replied. 'What's the opposite of prime? That's where I am. What did Marian say about my wife?' Freeman had his hands folded on the table between them. Lou was back with his coffee and Freeman pulled it over in front of him, blowing on it, stalling. 'David?'

A glance over the mug. 'Truth is, and she didn't make any bones about it, she's not too happy with her.'

'Truth is, I'm not so much either.'

A pause. 'So I gather she didn't tell you the big secret?'

Hardy shrugged that off - he didn't even want to start trying to explain this mess to David Freeman. If he got even a taste of the bone he'd gnaw it to dust. 'She says it's a matter of honor. She gave her word and she can't tell.' He made a face. 'But that wasn't the issue with Braun anyway.'

'No,' Freeman agreed. 'Though that might have been better. If it was only a matter of law...' He let it hang there.

'She's p.i.s.sed?'

'Very.'

Hardy swore. 'Would it help if I talked to her? Got Frannie to apologize? Did you tell her there are young children involved here?'

'I brought out the heavy artillery, Diz. She doesn't - how can I put this? - give a s.h.i.+t. She said Frannie's done it to herself. Braun's never in her career had anybody show such disrespect for the bench.'

'That's got to be an exaggeration.'

'It doesn't matter if it is if that's how the judge feels.' Freeman shrugged. 'The two of 'em got into a cat fight, Diz, that's what happened.'

'But Frannie didn't do anything, David. She's going along living her life, our life. She's not a criminal, not even a suspect for anything-'

'Material witness.'

'Not even that, not really.'

Again, Freeman's maddening nonchalant shrug. The law was the law. You could rant about it all you want, as people complained about the weather, and to about as much effect. 'It's the grand jury, Diz. You know as well as I do. h.e.l.l, you've even used it.'

Hardy couldn't deny it. Grand juries had awesome power. When he'd been a prosecutor, going before the grand jury had been one of his favorite pastimes. He would take a recalcitrant witness, put him in front of the panel without his attorney present, no judge to keep things on point, and keep that poor sucker up there for hours, often without a food or water or bathroom break, asking leading questions, doing whatever it took to get his evidence on to the record, because that's what the grand jury was for.

And though Scott Randall was certainly abusing it now, Hardy had to remember that the grand jury had come into existence, and still functioned, as a vehicle to protect civil rights. Because of its secrecy provisions and the teeth with which infractions against them were enforced, the grand jury was the only place where prosecutors could get answers from scared or recalcitrant witnesses, where the truth could come out. n.o.body could ever know you were even there or what you might have said. You were safe - from your enemies, from corrupt officials, from the prying media.

In theory, anyway.

But now Frannie. He would not have dreamed this could ever happen to someone in his personal life. And never to his wife. Frannie wasn't living on the edge of the law. She wasn't like the others. Except that now, to Marian Braun and Scott Randall, it appeared that she was.

Even after all of his experience with the law, this perspective hit him with almost a concussive force. The law could happen to anybody. Again, Freeman's a.n.a.logy with the weather. A hurricane had just swept Frannie up, and now she was in it.

But Freeman was resolutely moving ahead, as he did. Problem-solving. 'Have you talked to anybody yet who's found the husband, what's his name?'

'Beaumont. Ron Beaumont. No, Glitsky wasn't around. I left him a note. I'm going back up after we're done here. But let's not leave Frannie.'

'I'm not leaving her. I think we ought to go to the newspapers with this after all. Even if Randall and Pratt don't fold, Marian might be responsive to that kind of pressure. At least it's worth a shot.' He drank some coffee. 'But I think we need to consider cutting our losses.'

'Which are?'

'The four days. Unless they locate Mr Beaumont and can get him to talk, she's got herself a bigger problem than four days.'

Scott Randall was sitting in a folding chair, his legs crossed comfortably. With him in the large but spartan expanse of Sharron Pratt's office were homicide lieutenant Abe Glitsky, homicide sergeants Tyler Coleman and Jorge Batavia, and Randall's own DA's investigator Peter Struler. Randall was having himself a fine morning. At last, things were moving along on Beaumont, and all because of this Frannie Hardy woman.

Sometimes, he reflected, you just had to take prisoners.

And if it got to that, as it had here, then invariably you alienated some people. In this case, it was Glitsky and his sergeants. Well, Randall thought, maybe next time they got a hot homicide they would try to keep their investigation alive even if there happened to be a crisis in the department. For now, they just had their noses out of joint because Randall and Struler had actually made progress on a case they considered all but closed. Turf wars. Too bad for them.

But Glitsky, as head of the homicide detail, naturally had to put a different face on it. Now he was barking at Pratt. 'I know this woman, Sharron. She is a close personal friend. She watched my kids for a month after my wife died. She should not be in jail.'

'Evidently Judge Braun doesn't agree with you, lieutenant. I'm not sure I do, either.'

Pratt didn't like Glitsky. She thought the police were out to undermine her authority, and make her look bad whenever and wherever they could. For her part, the DA took every opportunity to criticize the force. She'd run for office on a platform of stomping out police brutality - nowhere near the greatest of the city's many problems. The Police Department union had supported her opponent and she wasn't likely to forget it.

She would often choose not to have her office prosecute a suspect that the police had already arrested because she didn't believe in so-called victimless crimes. So at least every week or two she'd simply set free suspected prost.i.tutes, druggies, and other a.s.sorted misunderstood persons.

But she wasn't going to release Frannie Hardy. No siree. There were legal principles involved here. She was standing her ground. 'Isn't this woman,' she asked, 'isn't her husband the attorney? He used to work at this office, didn't he?'

Randall spoke up. 'Until he got fired.'

Glitsky shot him a look. 'He quit.'

Randall didn't rise to it. 'Check the record,' he retorted mildly. Back to Pratt. 'Dismas Hardy, and he was fired.'

Pratt's mouth turned up a millimeter, a beaming smile for her. 'Ah, yes. I've tried to work with him before.'

Glitsky noted the emphasis on the word 'tried' and Pratt's use of it didn't bode well for the Hardy camp. But he wasn't through fighting for Frannie, not by a long shot. 'Look.' He summoned up a conciliatory tone. 'Sharron. We don't have any evidence at all that connects Ron Beaumont to this murder. We're looking at him, sure, but by all accounts he was in fact out having coffee with Mrs Hardy when his wife was killed. Even Mr Randall doesn't dispute that.'

But Scott wasn't going to let Glitsky put words in his mouth. He piped right up. 'It's a big window of time. Actually, there's a lot of room for doubt.'

But this wasn't where Glitsky wanted to pick his fight, so he resisted the urge to snap back. Instead, he rolled his eyes and pressed on. 'And if we find that Mr Beaumont fits into that window of time, we'll probably get closer to a warrant. But that's my point. Right now the investigation is nowhere and-'

'Precisely why I took it over and gave it to Senior Investigator Struler here.'

Glitsky tried to ignore Randall, to direct himself to Pratt. 'The original investigating officer died, Sharron. There wasn't any intentional foot-dragging.'

'I haven't heard anyone make that accusation, lieutenant.' Pratt smiled again, thinly. 'But the point, my point, is that Mr Randall was conducting his own investigation due to the... unfortunate lack of progress that yours was making.' Glitsky started to open his mouth, but she stopped him, holding up a hand. 'And in the course of his investigation, Mr Beaumont became a suspect for the murder, and so his a.s.sociates became relevant targets for interrogation.'

'OK,' Glitsky conceded, 'and Frannie Hardy didn't answer a question.' He turned to Randall. 'Do you have any idea how often our witnesses don't answer questions, Scott? If we locked any percentage of them up, any percentage, one two per cent, we'd have to rent the whole city of San Bruno just for the warehouse s.p.a.ce to hold 'em.'

Randall wasn't hearing it. 'But this a murder case, Abe. We're not looking for some shoplifter here.'

Glitsky all but exploded. 'What do you think I'm talking about? I'm in homicide. All I see are murder cases, and I don't get a witness in a hundred who'll tell me what time it is if there's not something in it for him and his dog.' He modulated his voice again, feigning a calm rationality that fooled no one in the room. 'What I'm getting at, Sharron, is that this may have been an over-reaction on all sides. Frannie should have been given a day or two to go home and think about what she would be comfortable-'

'Comfortable!' Randall's turn to let go. 'I don't care if she's comfortable. I don't want her to be comfortable. She knows something critical to a murder case-'

'You don't know that!'

'- and until she tells what that is, we've got a murderer walking around on the streets-'

This time it was Batavia who interrupted. 'You're out of your mind, Randall. You got nothing. You're nowhere here. She's probably just f.u.c.king the guy and doesn't want her husband to find out. The lieutenant's right. You got nothing on Beaumont. No motive, no means, opportunity. Forget it. Let the lady go, would you? Jesus. I got to go to the bathroom.' And with that, he was out the door.

'Charming gentleman,' Pratt said.

'Good cop,' Glitsky responded.

Randall came forward in his folding chair. 'I don't care if he's the king of England. He's not giving me any suspects, so I develop my own and build my case. And from where I'm sitting, Frannie Hardy's right in the middle of it.'

Glitsky caught the eye of Batavia's partner, Tyler Coleman, gave the secret sign, and they both stood up. 'I wish you'd think about it some more, Sharron. This is really wrong.'

She looked him right in the eye. 'I will, Abe. I promise.'

While Glitsky and Coleman were waiting for the elevator, Batavia emerged from the hallway behind them. 'If a.s.sholes could fly,' he said, 'that place would be an airport.'

Glitsky himself tried to limit his profanity to a word or two a year, but he appreciated a well-turned phrase. The scar between his lips tightened in amus.e.m.e.nt. But Coleman was still seething - implicit in everything that had just transpired in Pratt's office was the accusation that he and his partner had booted one. 'If there's such a fire under this one, Abe, why didn't we hear about it?'

The elevator door opened and they squeezed in amid the rest of the clerks, cops, lawyers, and citizens. Glitsky had at one time decided that it could be an instructive display of authority to talk in a crowded elevator, and he answered Coleman as if they were alone in his office. He also thought it wouldn't be all bad if some spy from the airport - he hoped that Batavia's new nickname for the DA's office would have a long life - heard him taking Mr Scott Randall to task for his misguided enthusiasm. Maybe he'd also drop a little rumor about Scott's ambitions that his boss wouldn't appreciate all that much.

'Randall wants a high-profile case, that's all, Vince. He wants out of this low-rent office, into the big private money. This building's not big enough for him, so due process takes a powder.'

Batavia was also immune to elevator squelch. His voice boomed in the enclosed s.p.a.ce. 'But he doesn't have a G.o.ddam thing, Abe. Like I said in there.' The doors opened and they stepped out. 'What's this window of time s.h.i.+t, anyway? Everything we've read or heard, the guy was dropping the kids at school, going for coffee.'

But here, though he hated it, Glitsky had to admit that technically, Randall wasn't all wrong. He had to give Coleman and Batavia his reading that even if Frannie's alibi was righteous, Ron Beaumont still could have killed his wife. Bree's body hadn't been discovered in the patio for several hours, and the coroner hadn't been able to fix a precise time of death. 'It could have been three hours plus or minus,' he concluded. 'We're going on around eight thirty on the theory that Ron left the house a little before that and says she was still alive.'

'The kids say it, too. How about that?' Batavia wasn't ready to give anything to Scott Randall.

But Glitsky knew that the homicide cop's worst enemy was imprecision. Well, maybe second worst after jumping to conclusions, but certainly way up there. He corrected Batavia. 'I hate to say it, Jorge, but the kids were a little vague.'

Coleman popped in. 'Hey, it's two days after their mom died, for Christ's sake, and they didn't remember what she had for breakfast. I don't blame 'em. h.e.l.l, I don't remember what I had for breakfast today. I don't even know if I ate breakfast.'

'Donuts,' Batavia said. 'Remember, Lanier brought up-'

'Guys!' Glitsky stopped at the door to the homicide detail. 'The point is, Ron's not eliminated, OK?'

Batavia wasn't letting it go. 'The kids said the mom was there, Abe.'

Glitsky shook his head. 'Ron prompted them. Read the one transcript Griffin got around to getting typed. Carl didn't get the kids to talk to him with their father out of the room, and not to speak ill of the dead, but I do so wish he had. And let's not forget that Ron has left his home and gone to parts unknown.'

'All right. s.h.i.+t.' Batavia had a habit of dismissing himself. He was turning now on his heel, on his way to his desk.

'Jorge!'

It was his lieutenant. He had to stop.

'We're not done here. This is still our case. Randall hasn't charged anybody.'

He took a step back. 'I thought you just said-'

Glitsky cut him off. 'I didn't say it was Ron. I said he wasn't impossible. But one thing's for sure - he's Randall's guy, isn't he? I mean, the DA's committed to Ron Beaumont now. n.o.body else. You hear what I'm saying?'

Coleman did. He looked at his partner. 'Anybody else would be, like, a teeny tiny embarra.s.sment, don't you think?'

Glitsky watched his inspectors, making sure they both got it. As Batavia's face broke into a smile of comprehension, he pointed a finger. 'Go,' he said.

'But I've got to find Ron,' Hardy said. 'How about your guys find Ron first, then they start on everybody else?'

It was a long-standing tradition in homicide that the lieutenant's desk held a stash of peanuts. Glitsky was taking advantage of this naturally occurring phenomenon, eating a hearty breakfast of donuts, peanuts, and tea. He broke a sh.e.l.l thoughtfully. 'You got any ideas where we look to find Ron?'

'No. But he's got to have some family. Maybe somebody at the school, who he'd want them to notify in case of emergency...'

A reluctant sigh. 'OK, that's not bad. We can try that. I'll send a squad car back to his place, too. Couldn't hurt. But I wouldn't hold my breath, Diz. If he took his car and he's gone - what did you say, three days already? - then he could be in Chicago by now. If he flew, it could be anywhere.'

'OK, but if he flew, especially with the two kids, there's a record of it.'

Glitsky was shaking his head slowly, sadly. His friend hadn't gotten much sleep and it was showing. 'Diz, you know I'm feeling for Frannie. I just went a few rounds with Pratt over it. But we can't go large on Ron. We don't have the personnel and if we did they'd have better things to do.'

'Abe, the guy's a murder suspect-'

'Maybe, maybe. But he came in and talked to the grand jury when they asked him, and answered all their questions. They were done with him. n.o.body gave him a thought as a suspect until Frannie mentioned their little secret.' He threw a peanut into his mouth and grabbed for his tea. 'Randall didn't even tell him not to leave town. Maybe they went camping, or to Disneyland. Who knows? The mom just died, Diz. They feel squirrely where she lived. It's weird there. This stuff happens. What's up with Frannie?'

Hardy shook his head. 'She's not talking.'

Glitsky did his still-life imitation. After a few seconds, he cracked another peanut. 'Braun cut her any slack?'