John Lescroart (37 page)

Hardy considered for a long beat, then broke a grin. “He just won't go away, will he?”

 

The weight of the world settled on him as soon as he opened the door to his home. Had it only been last night, he thought, that it had all worked so well here? Tonight, like an animal in the moments before an earthquake, he felt the tension before he could have been consciously aware of it. He walked back through the dark and silent house, turning on lights as he went. “Anybody home?”

A distracted voice answered—Vincent's. Before the remodel, their old bedroom had been directly behind the kitchen. They had turned it into a family room with their entertainment center, a couch, some reading chairs. Vincent sat in one of them, the room dark around him, playing with a handheld Game Boy. “Hey.” Hardy flicked on that light, too. “How's my guy?”

Vincent barely looked up. “Hey.”

“What's the matter?”

“Nothing.”

He stood looking at his son, debating whether he should try to break through, but he decided not. Vincent was all right, into his game, which Hardy thought probably wouldn't harm him for life. He knew from long experience the probable reason why Vincent was here, doing what he was doing. It was a refuge.

“Where are the girls?” he asked, although he was sure he knew. The door to Rebecca's room was closed and a light showed under it.

Frannie was sitting on the Beck's bed, a stricken, exhausted look on her face. His daughter was lying across the comforter, her head on her mother's lap. Frannie was stroking her hair. They both looked up and he saw exactly what he expected—that the Beck had been crying again.

He felt his own shoulders sag. Another crisis. My God,
he thought, would it never end? Without a word, he crossed over and sat with them on the bed. His eyes met his wife's, he put a hand on the Beck's shoulder. “How's my sweetie?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Not too good.”

“I guessed that.” He rubbed her shoulder, looked a question at Frannie.

“They had a suicide workshop today.”

He would have laughed if it hadn't made him so furious. He couldn't keep the comment in. “Well, there's something every seventh grader sure needs to know all about. What did they do, give tips on the top ten favorite ways?”

Frannie gave him a signal to hold his temper, but he couldn't do it. This was at least the fifth such workshop in the past couple of months, and each one had traumatized his already fragile daughter. Since Thanksgiving, in the name of God knew what, the Beck's school had subjected her and apparently the rest of its students to perhaps forty hours of “awareness training,” and it was playing havoc with her life.

She was, Hardy hoped, still a good five or six years away from sexual activity, but her school had given a
five-day
course on every possible malady and consequence that could ever be associated with sex. A few weeks later, all the girls had been enlightened on the growing incidence of anorexia and bulimia in the age group. Rebecca tended to “pick” at certain foods, and the fact sheet that the school had sent home with her listed this as a possible indicator of trouble. Although the Beck weighed ninety-odd pounds and ate with a healthy appetite, the eating disorder bug had even infected Frannie over the holidays, and that had been a lot of fun. Then, in January, came the drills in case a group of terrorists, or some of their fellow students, broke into the school and started shooting or throwing bombs—how they should pile their desks a certain way, strategies for exiting the campus.

Hardy rubbed his daughter's back. And now suicide prevention. For the life of him he couldn't imagine how
any amount of precounseling was going to have any appreciable impact on the rate of teen suicide. The Beck sniffed and sat up. “Why would somebody my age want to kill themself? I didn't even know they did that.”

“Not very often, Beck. Really.”

“But why?”

Maybe, Hardy thought, because all these awareness courses made kids so fearful that they no longer had the guts to live, or even wanted to, in such a treacherous and unstable world. But, of course, he couldn't say that. “It's really not very common, Beck. It's not like it's something that happens to you. You've got to decide that's what you want to do, and very very few people feel that way, especially kids.”

No doubt Frannie had been mouthing the same truths for the past hour, and gradually, getting them from her dad as well, they were beginning to sink in. She was perking up slightly. “I don't think I'm going to want to commit suicide. Do you?”

“No. Of course not.”

“But they made it seem like if you have a boyfriend and he breaks up with you, then that's one of the things to do.” She brought a little fist down on her thigh. “But that would be so
stupid
. I mean, I never would have thought of that, even if I ever did have a boyfriend to begin with.”

“You're right,” Frannie said. “That would be stupid.”

“But how great that they teach this and give everybody the idea.” Hardy couldn't keep the disgust out of his voice. He pulled his daughter closer. She wrapped her arms around him. “Bad things happen sometimes, Beck, but not as often as you think. Not even close. You don't have to worry about all of them, or even any of them.”

“I know,” she said. “Worrying doesn't do any good, ever. You always say that.”

“I do, you're right.”

“Your father's right, Beck. It really doesn't do much good.” Maybe, they hoped, if she heard it enough from people she trusted, she'd start to believe it.

Suddenly Hardy remembered the talk he'd had with
Jeff Elliot yesterday. “Do you know anybody who's ever been hit by lightning?”

The Beck didn't know where this was coming from, but she was curious. “No. That almost never happens.”

“How about you, Fran? No? Me, neither. Now . . . you know all these things you're learning about in school? Well, guess what?”

Vincent was standing at the door, bored beyond words with all of this. “Are you guys done? Are we having dinner tonight? I'm
so
starving.”

 

Hardy wanted to check his messages before he turned in for the night. He hadn't been at his desk since before he went down to Jupiter to see Dash Logan, and there was enough hanging fire that he knew he wouldn't get to sleep if he didn't.

His answering machine gave him the time and date of his messages. The first two calls came in within five minutes after he'd left his office for the day, and he clenched his teeth at the perversity of fate. He might even still have been downstairs, sharing a few end-of-the-week bon mots with the lovely Phyllis.

The first call was from Jon Ingalls, wanting Hardy to know that he'd remained unlucky with witnesses. Jon left his number, telling Hardy to call anytime. What was on tap for tomorrow? He'd be waiting by the phone.

The next message was from Jeff Elliot: “I wanted you to be among the first to know that I just resigned. If they want me back, and they will, they'll have to beg and then pay me more for all the trouble they put me through. Also, anent our other recent discussion, something did finally occur to me. That connection you were talking about between Torrey and Dash Logan—I might have one. There's a private investigator named Gene Visser. You might know him. He used to be a cop.”

Hardy felt a small surge of electricity. At Sam's the other day, Visser's name had come up as the heavy who'd tried to blackmail Rich McNeil.

Jeff was going on. “When Torrey started at the D.A.'s,
Visser worked for him almost as his own personal investigator. They were pretty tight. I don't know if they still are, but I have seen Visser and Logan together a lot. So if Torrey and Visser still talk . . . anyway, for whatever it's worth.”

Hardy thought it might be worth a lot, but he didn't get any time to celebrate. The last call, from Torrey himself, was made at 4:41—about ten minutes after Hardy had left Logan at Jupiter.

Torrey's message was that since he and Hardy were getting to prelim on Cole Burgess next week, they were both going to be swamped. So he was just looking through some other prosecutions that were coming up through the office in the next few weeks and happened to notice Hardy's name on one of them as the attorney of record. It seemed to Torrey that this case,
People v. McNeil,
was one where a judge was likely to try to get the parties to settle so it wouldn't clog up the docket, and certainly neither Torrey nor Hardy needed the extra hours when their plates were so full. If Hardy wanted to settle the case, he could probably save his client both time and aggravation, and Torrey would be happy to consider alternatives. At least the two of them should discuss it, see what they could work out.

The small surge of electricity had turned to an insistent hum.

Frannie came into the room as he was hanging up. She came up behind him, put her hands on his shoulders and dug her thumbs into the muscles along his backbone. His head fell forward as though he'd been clubbed. “Don't ever stop,” he said.

She kissed the top of his head, massaging around his neck. “You know why the camper got a migraine?” she asked.

“No, and I don't care.” His eyes were closed. He was in heaven.

“Too tense.” Then, relief and fatigue in equal parts. “They're both down and out.”

Hardy straightened up. “Did you double-check for
molesters lurking outside the Beck's window? Maybe we should do nightly drills, the best ways out of the house just in case . . .”

She brought a palm up against his head. “Stop.”

“She strikes him,” he intoned. “A clear case of domestic violence, spousal abuse . . .” He turned back to her, took the hand that rested on his shoulder. “Sorry. I know, enough. I'll be down in a sec. Two phone calls. Short. Promise.”

“I'm pouring wine and will start without you. You've been warned.”

“Fair enough.”

He called Jon Ingalls back. He appeared, in fact, to have been waiting by the phone. Hardy told him about Glitsky's idea to canvass the restaurants and bars in the area around Maiden Lane. Ingalls was in, whatever it was. He'd be there. What time should they start?

He didn't expect anything when he called Ridley again, but you never knew. Cops worked strange hours. Friday night bachelor or not, he might be in catching up on paperwork. But no such luck. The machine answered again.

Ridley's machine was the kind that beeped before the tone. Every beep was a call, and since he'd started trying to reach him, Hardy had been subliminally aware of the increase in the number of calls. Now he sat at his desk and waited, counting through ten, fifteen, twenty.

When the tone finally came, Hardy left his message and hung up. He scratched at his stubble, his face a brown study. In the two days since Hardy had last talked to him, twenty-eight people had left messages for Ridley Banks, and apparently he hadn't even checked them to clear his machine.

 

It was almost eleven o'clock, and bitter cold.

Treya climbed the steps up to Glitsky's door, then stood for an eternity on his doorstep. In the dark. Unable to knock.

Earlier, Treya had been to Raney's basketball game.
After that, she and her daughter went out for a pizza. Then they went back home, where Raney got ready for bed. And Treya told her she had to go out. She'd be back in a little while.

No light showed from within. It was still as death.

Finally, finally, she tapped on the glass three times with her fingernail, a sound infinitesimally small, tentative, gone. No one could have heard it, but that was all she would do. She'd wait here another little while and . . .

Something was moving inside the flat. The landing light came on. The door opened. Abe was barefoot, still wore his jeans, the black sweater.

“Does your doctor want you awake this late?”

“I'm bad with authority. You might as well get used to it. It's a little cold.” He backed up to let her enter.

“Where is everybody? Your boys?” she asked. Then: “What's that noise?”

Glitsky listened intently for a minute. “I don't hear . . .”

“There. That.”

“Oh.” His face softened. “That's Rita. She snores sometimes. I'm so used to it, I don't even hear it anymore. She's behind that screen.”

“She sleeps in the living room?”

Glitsky gestured simply. It was a small place, homey, crowded with furniture. “Only until we finish the guest wing.”

She grimaced. “I'm sorry, Abe. I didn't mean . . .”

He touched her arm softly. “It's okay. Anyway, the boys are out someplace. They made me swear on my mother's honor that I wouldn't budge. I was to sit and read my book, then go to bed, preferably early.”

“Which you haven't done.”

“I know,” he said. “It's bad of me. That authority thing again. It's lucky I'm a boss. When I have a job, I mean.”