John Lescroart (10 page)

“I think that's premature.”

“Yeah, but they crank up the criminal charges, it's going to be much more expensive.”

“First they have to prove them, which they can't do.”

“Yeah, well, that's what everyone thinks. Then they do. Just a friendly reminder.”

“I'll keep it in mind.”

“I'll be here.” The line went dead.

Hardy clutched at the phone, realizing that he'd finally managed to connect with Dash Logan only to fail to discuss anything substantive about his client's case or even to make an appointment to meet with him. He looked down at the receiver. “Thanks a lot,” he said.
“Dash.”

“Dash. Hmm.” Freeman moved forward into the office. “That would have been the inimitable Mr. Logan, I presume?”

“Either him or his impersonator,” Hardy said, “and about as cooperative as you'd led me to expect.” Suddenly Freeman's appearance in his office struck him as the unusual occurrence it was. “So what brings you up here to the nosebleed seats? Don't tell me—Phyllis quit and you wanted me to be the first to know. No, that couldn't be it. You'd have brought champagne.”

“Not that,” Freeman said. “Dear Phyllis is still with us.”

Hardy shrugged. “Okay, then, I give up.”

Freeman didn't answer right away, and that in itself was instructive. Hands in his pockets, he slouched his way across to the window, where he stared down for a moment, then turned and leaned back against the sill. “You may recall this morning we spoke about your involvement with Cole Burgess?”

“Noninvolvement,” Hardy corrected him. “I was just going down to talk to him at the hospital, get his side of what happened. I did. End of story.”

“So you're not representing him?”

Hardy began to shake his head no, then narrowed his eyes at the old man. “What happened?” he asked, and the questions continued to tumble out. “He tried to kill himself, didn't he? He
did
kill himself? No. Somebody else killed him, didn't they? Tell me it wasn't Glitsky.”

Freeman had to chortle. “Easy, Diz, easy. He's alive as far as I know. But my trained legal mind can't help but notice that you seem to harbor a little concern for him.”

“Not really that.” A defensive shrug, then he gave it up. “I came away not exactly convinced that the confession is righteous.”

“In what way?”

“He was in withdrawal and they promised him relief. He would have confessed to killing his mother. Hell, he might have actually killed his mother if they asked him to. In any event, it ought to be on the tape.”

Freeman shook his head knowingly. “No, it won't. No cop is that dumb. They make the promise off camera, then sweat him on it.” He straightened up and sighed heavily. “Either way, though, whether he did it or not, the boy's got worse problems than he had this morning.”

“That'd take some doing.”

“Well, listen up. Evidently some doing got done.” Freeman filled him in on Sharron Pratt's speech at the Commonwealth Club.

By the end of the recital, Hardy had lowered himself down into a chair opposite the couch. His expression was one of shock and disbelief. He finally managed a word. “Death?”

Freeman nodded. “Unequivocally. And the arraignment is tomorrow morning.”

“But Pratt's never even asked for specials before.”

“She is now. She called it a sea change in her policy. Get tough, get votes.”

Hardy still couldn't imagine it. “But he has no priors. They'd never ask for death on a guy with no record.” Freeman had no reply, but Hardy kept arguing. “Death isn't possible for any number—”

“It is if she can prove first degree with specials.”

“But she can never hope to get a jury to do that. Even if he did kill Elaine, he was drunk or stoned or both at the time. Everybody admits that, even the cops. So you got a guy with no priors and serious psychiatric and substance issues. They don't get death. It's just not doable.”

“Maybe not, assuming he's got a good attorney.” It was getting dark outside and the room wasn't bright, but Freeman's eyes shone in the dimness.

“Don't give me that look, David.”

All innocence, Freeman spread his hands. “No look,” he said.

“I didn't say he didn't do it.” Hardy filled his lungs and let out the air in a whoosh. “I said I thought his confession might have been coerced. That's not saying he didn't do it. There's a lot of other evidence.”

“I'm sure there is.” Freeman waited, his basset eyes unmoving. “But the death penalty?”

“She can't go there,” Hardy said calmly. “That's just flat wrong.”

“I thought you might feel that way.” The old man's poker face gave nothing away—even his eyes had gone flat. “You don't want the case, I'm on it. But you're already there, he thinks he's your client. You've successfully defended death penalty cases before. You hate Pratt and everything she stands for, especially this decision.”

Hardy stood up abruptly, walked over to his desk, tapped it a few times with his knuckles, then turned back to face the old man. “So what am I going to do?”

Freeman nodded. “I guess that's what I came up here to find out.”

G
litsky left the office early, carrying the videotape that contained the Burgess confession tucked into the inside pocket of his heavy shepherd's jacket. Back home, at a few minutes after five, he walked purposefully through the kitchen and down the hallway to the room on the left that had until recently been Orel and Jacob's bedroom. Now Jacob was nineteen and living in Milan, the half-black cop's son actually getting small parts as an operatic baritone. Isaac, Abe's eldest boy, had left the home, too. He was now a senior at UCLA, majoring in economics, pulling down a four-point. Orel had moved down the hall to Isaac's old room.

He walked the few steps over to the VCR, punched the power button, pulled the videotape from his pocket. Suddenly some sense of the place stopped him. His shoulders settled imperceptibly. He laid the tape on top of the television, raised his eyes to glance around the room.

He closed his eyes, feeling it the way it was only yesterday, though that was four years ago. The two boys had their bunk beds against that wall where the couch was now. And here, at the oak entertainment center, had been the pair of back-to-back desks where they did homework and piled their stuff. There had been junk everywhere—hockey sticks and football pads, every type of ball in the known world, sports and music posters all over the walls. The ineradicable smell, the incessant noise. Isaac still at home, his room down the hall. The growing boys filling every speck of the place with life, with potential.

And Flo. Flo singing in the kitchen or humming quietly at the living room table where she did the bills. She
was always singing or humming. She'd had a beautiful voice, a deep and rich contralto. Glitsky was sure that was where Jacob got his. His wife hadn't really been much of a softie, but she had loved melodic ballads, show tunes—“Over the Rainbow,” “Till There Was You,” “The Rose.” Her favorite song from the day he'd met her was “Unchained Melody.” It was as though the song were part of her very being. She'd be combing her hair, unaware that she was singing, and Abe would stop whatever he was doing, caught in it.

He made it a point to keep his guard up, but now, somehow, it had fallen. Standing there in his boys' old bedroom, inside a memory he never consciously decided to dredge up, he started to allow himself to hear her singing it once again.

Oh, my love, my darling . . .

The room came up at him. He put a hand to his eyes. “Lord,” he whispered.

Blindsided, he found himself over on the couch, wondering what had hit him. At the same time knowing what it was. Finally amazed in some way that these bouts occurred as infrequently as they did.

It was Elaine's death, he decided. Stirring up all the other gunk.

That, and the Treya Ghent interview this morning. That still nagged at him, too—not only the lack of any tangible result about the Burgess case but the reaction he'd had to her.

The door to his office.

The foolish, immature way he'd handled the visit from Hardy, who deserved better than that.

He wasn't under constant attack here at home. He couldn't be seen, didn't have to work so hard to hide whatever might be troubling him. So all of it—Flo and the older kids being gone, Elaine, everything—all of it had bubbled over for a minute. Here, where it was safe. That was all it had been.

Okay, now he had himself back under control. He was in his TV room. It wasn't some loaded mnemonic weapon.
It was four walls, a window, door and closet, some inexpensive, durable new furniture. In three steps, he was back at the VCR, where he inserted the tape and turned on the television.

 

Frannie reached Hardy before he'd left the office. She'd heard of a great new restaurant that they needed to try and she'd been able to get last-minute reservations. So instead of the Shamrock, for their date could he meet her at the Redwood Room in the Clift Hotel?

Since this was less than a dozen blocks from where he worked, he told her he thought it might be possible. “No promises, but a pretty good chance.”

“Well, I shall arrive in ribbons and curls at seven sharp,” she said in her most cultured high-British tones. “If you're not there to meet me, someone else will ask for my company and I expect I'll have to go off with another escort.”

“I expect you would,” he replied drily.

“It's the great curse of a certain superficial charm, the swarms of men.”

“I can only imagine.”

“Though one's heart is set on one's husband.”

“Of course. He shall then redouble his efforts to be prompt.”

“In that event, sir, I shall reward those efforts.”

“One's heart soars at the possibilities. Until then, then?”

“Until then. Ciao.”

Smiling, he put the receiver in its cradle.

He hadn't moved a muscle when the phone rang again. He snatched it back up—“Dismas Hardy”—and Glitsky was on the line, speaking without preamble. “What are you doing?”

“Just a moment, let me check. I seem to be talking on the telephone.”

“Are you going to be there for a while?”

“I'm meeting Frannie in an hour and a half.”

“That's enough time.”

“For what?”

“To see the Burgess tape.”

Hardy sat forward, his hands suddenly tight around the receiver. “What about it?”

“I brought it home. Just watched it through for the first time. Compared it to the initial incident reports. I thought you'd like to take a look at what I've got.”

This was highly unusual. Hardy and Glitsky might be friends, but the police did not make evidence available to defense attorneys. That role—called discovery—was the exclusive providence of the District Attorney. But Hardy wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. “The video of the confession?” he said. “You could probably talk me into it.”

There was an emptiness in the line, then Glitsky cleared his throat. “I also wanted to apologize.”

“All right. If that was it, it's accepted. You should know that I've got a few questions of my own.”

Glitsky responded with a long silence. Then: “I can be there in a half hour.”

 

The confession was near the end of the sixth hour of tape. Cole was speaking in a voice thick with fatigue. The camera was on him the whole time—one continuous shot of an exhausted man sitting at a table in a small room, patiently reciting his part without any animation.

It took seven minutes to watch it once. They immediately rewound and were midway through the second viewing when Hardy stopped the picture. “Here,” he said, “right here.” He pressed play again.

On the screen, Cole was answering an interrogator's question about the actual moment of the shooting. “I don't know, I'm maybe ten feet behind her. She's just turned into the alley.”

The interrogator asked what he did next.

“She just got in the shadow, so it was real dark.”

“Go on.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Just what happened. Tell us in your own words what happened.”

“Okay.” A long hesitation. “I shot her?”

“Is that a question? I don't know if you shot her. You tell me. Did you shoot her?”

Cole's confused eyes flicked somewhere out of the camera's line of vision, then came back. “Yeah, I did. I shot her then. When she got in the shadow.”

“And what did you do then?”

“Well . . . she fell and I, I remember I walked over to her. She was this shape on the pavement, so I crossed over to her. And then the purse and the necklace and so on.”

“What about the gun?”

“The gun? Oh yeah. I put it down on the street for a minute. The necklace . . . I needed two hands. Then the cop car hit me with the light and I remembered I had to get the gun.”

“And then?”

“Then I started running.”

The two men were watching, maintaining an uneasy silence on either end of the couch. Hardy hit the remote and the screen went black. He spoke into the air in front of them. “Close contact wound. The gun was right up against her head, right. And she didn't fall hard. She was wearing hosiery that would have ripped or run or something. Somebody did her right next to her, then caught her and laid her down.”

“Not somebody,” Glitsky answered. “Burgess.”

Hardy threw him a skeptical look. “Maybe. Maybe not. But Cole was ten feet behind her, and as drunk as we know he was, how did he put one shot perfectly into the exact base of her skull in the dark with a gun just three inches long?” Hardy thought he'd serve his client better by being straight with Glitsky than by keeping the letter of the attorney-client privilege. “He told me he didn't remember shooting the gun, but thought he must have.”

“Thought he must have.” Glitsky dipped into his own well of skepticism. “There's a phrase. Did he mention why?”

“They ran GSR”—gunshot residue analysis—“and he had it on his hands.”

“I'm not surprised,” Glitsky said drily. “He fired the gun, that's why.” A pause. “Probably twice, in fact.”

“Probably twice. Talk about a phrase.” Hardy looked him a question.

Abe gave it up. “You'll find out anyway. One of the arresting officers, Medrano, says in his report that the gun went off when they were chasing him.”

“Went off?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, Abe, while we're talking fascinating turns of phrase. The gun
‘went off'
? That's a funny way to put it, don't you think?”

No response.

Hardy continued. “You're a street cop in a dark alley with one body already down. You're on foot after a fleeing suspect, the adrenaline's off the charts and you're on full alert, right? You're telling me you hear a gunshot but you're sure the gun
just went off
? It wasn't a shot at your own self. But you're
positive
? Enough that you don't shoot back. I don't think so.”

“It's a stretch,” Glitsky said.

“It's more than that, Abe.” Hardy was fiddling with the remote again. “Now on top of that, we've got this—this is the part I really don't like.”

Cole was back up on the screen: “I, I remember I walked over to her. She was this shape on the pavement, so I crossed over to her.”

Hardy stopped the tape, gave Glitsky his full face. “Notice he says ‘I remember.' What I think is that right here suddenly Cole came back to what he
really
remembered. Not what Ridley Banks wanted him to say. Did you hear? He says he
crossed over
to her. Does that sound like something you'd say if you'd just shot somebody point-blank from behind? And while we're on that, how does a drunk junkie get close enough to Elaine Wager in a dark alley to press a gun to the back of her head? If it was a street mugging, he grabs her purse and runs.”

The lieutenant nodded ambiguously. Hardy could hear Glitsky's heavy, nearly labored breathing and suddenly he needed to stand up. Walking over to his dartboard, he pulled the three customs from it, walked to the tape line on the floor and threw them back where they'd been. Sliding a haunch back onto his desk, he looked across at his friend. “Somebody hit her.”

Abe's eyes met Hardy's. “Cole Burgess.”

“Really?”

Glitsky raised his eyes, let out a long breath. “The confession's bad, that's all. Ridley got a little too enthusiastic sweating him. It was my fault. I gave him the message.”

Hardy's mind raced over the variables in the situation. It was ugly from any angle. If Pratt hadn't already formally charged Cole with special circumstances murder—and it wouldn't surprise him to learn that she'd rushed the paperwork through—she'd at least gone public with her position. More, she'd made it the centerpiece of her new campaign. In the city's reality, there was no chance that she would be flexible.

This meant that the progress of Cole's prosecution was no longer in Abe's jurisdiction. The police had done their job, arresting a guilty suspect. If now the department hesitated even slightly
after Cole had already confessed,
there would be no end to the political ramifications.

Hardy wanted to offer some solace, but the pickings were slim. As the head of homicide, Glitsky had overreacted, leading his troops into unsafe and even forbidden territory. As a result, a man was looking at the death penalty and some of the evidence might be tainted. And nobody could afford to question it in public.

Glitsky got up. He walked over to the window and stood looking down into the darkened street.

“You all right, Abe?”

“The confession can't be part of it.”

“It might be more than that.”

Glitsky knew what Hardy was implying, but he shook his head no. “Don't kid yourself, Diz. It's Burgess all right. And now I've jeopardized taking him down.”
When he spoke again, it was all but to himself. “I'm too close. I can't be in this.”