John Lescroart (49 page)

Jon Ingalls pushed his chair back from the table. “You're saying we need to know if they had alibis.”

“I'm saying,” Freeman amplified, “that we'd be damn negligent if we got this far and lost sight of what we're really trying to do, which is provide an alternative to our client as Elaine's killer. Not a theory, a person. Nothing less is going to do it.”

“How are we going to do that”—Curtis Rhodin checked his watch—“in three or four hours?”

“I don't know,” Freeman conceded. “I admit there's precious little time and it's really police work that they probably haven't done. But if we don't have that information, we're looking at ugly surprises just about when we think we've won.”

After a moment, Amy Wu shook herself and sat up straight, smiling. “Okay,” she said. “How do we do this? Where do we go?”

 

After the musketeers had broken off and left on their various assignments, Freeman, Gina Roake and Hardy had stayed on for over an hour to discuss the possible meaning of the blank entries in Logan's check register. Hardy thought it completely in keeping with Logan's character that his office still seemed to use a low-tech, one-write system approach to its check-writing and bookkeeping. Before computers had come into his life, Hardy had used the same kind of system himself, so he was familiar with it. You wrote your check and tore it off. Under it, a light blue NCR-paper copy of the check, was your receipt. And finally, under the copy, the check was automatically entered in the ledger. The blank lines could have been anything really—voided checks, a ditzy secretary inserting a piece of paper between the ledger and the checks, a purposeful hiding of records. The last was Hardy's favorite notion, but there was simply no way to tell.

The musketeer assignments were desperate and dangerous, but necessary. The very cute Amy Wu was going with Jon Ingalls as her invisible chaperon to spend some time at Jupiter, where, according to the bartender when they'd phoned, Dash Logan was currently having a few drinks. He looked to be in for the long haul tonight.

From the Solarium, Curtis Rhodin had called the home of his friend at the A.G.'s office—they'd been unsuccessful getting a judge to issue any kind of warrant on Logan's office that morning, and both had been frustrated, aching for another chance. This was it. They would take an investigator—three of them together would ensure their safety, they hoped—and call on Visser first at his office and then at his home address. When they found him, they would ask him what he had to say about his movements on the night of Elaine's murder.

The same drill would not work on Torrey, not that Freeman, Roake or Hardy really considered that the chief A.D.A. could have pulled the trigger on Elaine. They all agreed that he would have used Visser. But why would Torrey even see them? Certainly, he would blow off Curtis, his friend and their investigator. And even if they did get in and pushed him for his alibi, he'd tell them to get lost—he wouldn't miss the message. His guard would be raised even higher.

Freeman, though, wanted to be thorough, and he had an idea. He believed he'd be able to bait Torrey into giving something away the next morning before court went into session.

 

It was closing in on ten-thirty and Hardy sat alone in the glass room.

The ledger sheets from Dash Logan's office lay fanned in front of him. They had been important enough for Elaine Wager to have copied them separately and carried them away with her—illegally. Her special master mandate was specific about her duties in searching a lawyer's office. She had two and only two options on how to treat documents such as these that she reviewed in a search.
She determined whether they fell into the categories specifically described in the affidavit. If they did, she gave it to the cops or, if the lawyer claimed a privilege, she took it to a judge. If they did not, she left them alone. And never, ever discussed them with anyone, not even a judge. It was that simple.

And yet she had risked her license and quite possibly her life to copy and remove what Hardy had in front of him.

Why? Why?

Freeman had left a few inches of wine in his bottle. Hardy got up, thinking he'd go see what tonight's choice had been. He went and sat in the chair David had been using. But he didn't reach for the wine right away. Just to his right, on the seat next to him, was the cardboard box full of Elaine's personal items.

On the top of it, facedown, was a framed something. He lifted it up. It was the picture of her mother, Loretta, that Treya had put up on the table when they'd first brought all the stuff down here. The other morning, Abe had asked the gang at the table if anybody minded if he put it back in the box. He didn't want to look at her face all day while he worked, and Hardy thought he understood pretty well why that was.

Still holding the frame, his fingers absently moving up and down the cardboard backing that held the photograph in place, he stared at the familiar visage of the senator, well-known public figure. Like her daughter, a beauty; and like her daughter, dead.

Hardy sighed wearily. Maybe his daughter was right after all to be frightened of everything. Maybe there was no security. A snatch from Matthew Arnold's “Dover Beach” flitted across his mind. “. . . neither joy, nor love, nor light,/Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain . . .”

He placed the photograph carefully on the table and reached for the wine bottle. Groth Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, 1990. He swirled and sniffed, then tipped the bottle up to his lips and tasted it, thinking it was no
wonder David could keep up
his
good attitude most of the time.

Abruptly, he stood. Carrying the bottle out with him, he crossed the lobby and walked down the hallway to the coffee room, where he turned on the light and took a wineglass from the cabinet. This stuff was too outrageously good to swill. He poured, put the bottle down, and suddenly the wine had vanished from his mind, driven away by a cascade of realizations.

He checked his watch.

It was too late now to call Judge Thomasino, but he could stop by his chambers first thing in the morning. The evidence locker, on the other hand, would be open all night. If he busted his hump, he could get down there, verify what he realized he had to know, and still—maybe—make it home to get the five hours' sleep he needed to survive another day.

Stopping back at the Solarium to turn off the lights, he saw that he'd left Loretta's picture on the table. Abe would see it first thing when he came by for the morning briefing, but Hardy didn't even have the energy to walk around the table and put it back into the box. Abe was a big boy. He'd be able to handle it.

“M
r. Torrey, excuse me.”

An hour before court would be called into session, Torrey sat in his office behind the Desk, reading the second part of Jeff Elliot's article on Abby Oberlin in yesterday afternoon's
Examiner
. David Freeman had pulled his forty years of familiarity and rank on the clerk who controlled access to the D.A.'s offices, and so achieved the element of surprise, which showed all over Torrey's face. Jerking the paper down when he saw who was interrupting him, he made an effort at quick recovery, but it wasn't fast enough. He inclined his head, his manner curt. “Mr. Freeman.” A pause. “Did we have an appointment?”

“No, sir. This is a courtesy call.”

Torrey coughed up a dry, humorless chuckle. “I could use a little of that.” He indicated the newspaper. “Have you read this latest scurrilous slander? Well, who am I talking to? Of course you have, if you didn't help write it.”

Freeman lifted his shoulders theatrically. He moved a step further into the room and waited.

Torrey set the newspaper down on the Desk. “But I guess appealing to your sense of fair play is whistling in the wind, isn't it?” Then, suddenly: “How did you get in here?”

“I had an appointment on another matter with one of your staff. Since I was here . . .” Another noncommittal shrug. “And for the record, I did not write a word of that article, nor did I contribute to it, although of course I'm aware of its contents. Mr. Hardy shares office space in my building, after all.” Freeman waved the topic away.
“But that's not why I'm here. Mr. Hardy's not my problem, though our mutual client is.” He clarified it. “I'm talking about Cole Burgess.”

“What about him?”

The old man closed the distance between him and the Desk, though he remained standing. “Look, it's not rocket science to see the direction that Mr. Hardy is going with this hearing. The whole proceeding has become a personal and professional attack on you. If I'm reading Judge Hill correctly, and I am, he's inclined to let it continue. What happens to you isn't my concern, either.”

“All right. What's your point?”

“My point is this: Mr. Hardy's going to continue in the same vein over the course of today's testimony. He's going to be probing the relationships you have with Mr. Visser and Mr. Logan.”

“From which you are trying to protect me, I suppose. You'll forgive me if I'm skeptical of your altruistic motives.”

But Freeman didn't rise to the barb. Instead, he shook his head and spoke mildly. “There's nothing altruistic about it, Mr. Torrey. I apologize if I gave you that impression. As I've said, my only concern is my client. Mr. Hardy and I have had a few words of disagreement as to strategy. I believe he's become obsessed with this vendetta against you, to the detriment of Cole Burgess.”

“It's just more rope, Mr. Freeman. He's hanging himself.”

“Let me make myself clear,” Freeman said. “The direction he's going now, the way he gets Burgess off is by accusing you three men of complicity in Elaine's killing, and I'm thinking the judge is going to let him do it.”

Torrey pulled himself up to his full height in his chair. “That's the most ridiculous—”

“It may be, but Hill's going to let it happen. Unless all of you have solid alibis for the time of the murder . . .”

“Oh, please . . .”

“You think I'm joking? You think it won't get to there?
Do you know what you were doing that night, for example?”

Torrey shook his head with disgust. “As a matter of fact, it so happens that because of Elaine's murder, I remember that night specifically. I had dinner with Sharron Pratt. Until very late.” He met Freeman's gaze, challenging. “But even if I hadn't—”

Freeman interrupted. “If you hadn't, there's still Visser and Logan, or even some third party, to say nothing of all this”—he pointed down at the newspaper—“all this hatchet work. What I'm suggesting is that you can end it all this morning. Drop the charges, at least the specials, against my client, and Mr. Hardy pleads it out. The whole thing goes away.”

Torrey stared across the Desk in disbelief. “You're suggesting that I let a murderer go to save myself some personal aggravation? Do you really think that's what this office is all about?”

“Let's not open that can of worms,” Freeman snapped. “I said when I got here that this was a courtesy call. I've extended the courtesy.”

Torrey's tone was ice. “A blackmailer's courtesy, counselor. There is no connection between me and the death of Elaine Wager. None at all. And this thinly veiled threat about what you or your partner might accuse me of isn't going to fly around here. Because that's what it is,” Torrey fumed. “Blackmail.”

“I'm sorry you see it that way.” A modest disappointment. “It's your funeral.”

On the way out to the courtroom, Freeman enjoyed a private chuckle. Of course the offer he'd made was stupid on the face of it. No matter what, at this point Torrey couldn't risk lowering the charges on Cole, but Freeman thought it was beautiful to wave the temptation in front of his face.

And Torrey for his part probably was thinking that Freeman's senility was by now well advanced. He possibly wasn't even aware that he'd given the old man his alibi, which had been the whole point of the exercise.

* * *

Contrary to expectations, Hardy did not begin the day with Dash Logan, but first asked the Cadaver's permission to call on Elaine Wager's paralegal for a couple of questions to establish the provenance of some documents, labeled Defense G, which would prove critical in his examination of Mr. Logan.

So when Dash Logan took the stand, he looked quite a bit the worse for wear. He'd been out partying until late, in the course of the night finally revealing to this knockout—Amy something—that he'd been in L.A. on the night of Elaine's murder. All that talking and spending, pretty sure he was going to get over with her, and then she'd excused herself to go to the bathroom and never come back. After that, he'd had to deal with this morning's news that the police had been and were still searching his office, this time in overt connection to Elaine. They were going through everything file by file. Patsy, God forbid, was there. He was sure that after last time, after the long weekend he and Visser had put in sterilizing the place, they would find nothing, but it was still nerve-racking.

He hadn't slept worth a damn, and the coffee hadn't done nearly enough, so he'd decided he needed a few lines to calm his nerves, but it had been so early—he didn't dare snort up in the Hall of Justice—that now he was just about back to straight.

On the witness stand. And here came that son of a bitch Hardy again, a pit bull with a mouthful of his leg.

“Mr. Logan, yesterday you told the court that you were professionally acquainted with Elaine Wager, isn't that so?”

“Yes. I was.”

“Do you recall the last time you saw her?”

“Yes. I saw her in my office sometime in the middle or late January.” He went on answering questions that explained a bit about her special master duties, his lack of cooperation with the police and his purported reason for it.

When he'd finished, Hardy went to his table and retrieved a thin stack of paper, bringing it forward to the witness box. “You have heard the previous witness, Ms. Ghent, identify these pages, Defense Exhibit G, as being included in a folder given to her by Elaine Wager after she'd come from your office a few hours before she was killed. Can you identify these pages for the court?”

He stared at them for a long moment, flipping through the pages, the sight of which cramped up his stomach.

“Mr. Logan?”

“They look like photocopies of my business ledger.”

“They
look like
them, Mr. Logan? Take your time and go through them carefully. Surely you are familiar with the checks you write?”

He stared at the pages for October and November, but he didn't understand how he could be looking at what he was seeing. There had only been that short period of time when, okay, he'd made a few errors. He'd let the partying get a little out of hand and wasn't following the business details as closely as he should have. Patsy had made some checks out to Gabe personally instead of writing them to the usual account, and he'd signed them and mailed them off.

Patsy, the idiot, had remembered to block the carbon that went all the way through to the ledger on the bottom, but she'd filed the duplicate checks—the NCR copies—in the physical files under Gironde.

He and Visser eventually found them and removed these check receipts from the file, then voided some bogus lines in the ledger. He specifically remembered doing it.

Now he answered the question. “It's a copy of my business ledger, all right, but somebody's erased some of the entries. It's not right.”

“It's not right?”

“No.”

Hardy nodded as though he expected this answer. He
moved back to the defense table and took another folder forward. “All right, then, how about these pages, Mr. Logan? Do these look any better?”

Rattled enough to begin with, Logan was so happy to see the pages he'd doctored that he didn't think to ask where Hardy had gotten them—which was through Glitsky after the police search of Logan's office last night. The ledgers had been the first thing they had copied. Logan studied the pages for a while, then said that yes, this looked more like his ledger.

“Looks more like it? Is it or isn't it?”

“Yes, it is.”

Hardy had it entered as Defense H, then came back to him. “Mr. Logan, looking again at these business ledgers, Defense Exhibits G and H, you'll notice that there are six entries in the latter that were originally made out to various business payees and then voided. Can you explain these entries?”

“My secretary screwed up. I don't know.”

“In Defense H, these same entries are blank, as you noticed. How do you explain that?”

A shrug. “I don't know that either. Somebody could have whited out the entry, then copied it. So it would look blank.”

“Or the record of the original checks was purposely kept out of the ledger. Isn't that really why they were left blank, Mr. Logan? Isn't it true that the voided entries are fallacious, intended to camouflage the real payee on these checks after the fact?”

“No. What are you talking about? Give me a break, would you?”

Pratt had been forebearing with her objections for quite a while and finally she decided she had to get back on the boards. “Your honor? If this line of questioning is even tangentially related to the death of Elaine Wager, I fail to see it. Do you?”

Judge Hill scowled. “I'm taking that as another relevance objection, counsel. Mr. Hardy, I'm inclined to
sustain this one unless you can bring me some closure. Where is this going?”

“This is going to the original payee on these six checks, your honor. We have gone to great lengths in this hearing to draw the inescapable conclusion that Mr. Logan and Mr. Visser have colluded in illegal activities together, possibly even the delivery of uncut heroin to Cullen Alsop, which caused his death. Ms. Wager's discovery of these illegal activities—”

“Your honor,” Pratt interrupted, “not only is the conclusion far from inescapable, it's demonstrably false. Elaine Wager couldn't have discovered anything about Cullen Alsop's death. He died a week after she did.”

“And she was killed”—Hardy raised his voice—“because she discovered something Mr. Logan was trying to keep covered up.” The gallery came to life behind Hardy, but he spoke loudly through it. “Something she found in his office while she was working there in her court-appointed role as a special master—”

“Your honor!” Torrey was on his feet, interrupting even more loudly. “This is inexcusable. We've seen no evidence for any of these outrageous accusations. Now Mr. Hardy is simply arguing, creating some grand conspiracy out of whole cloth when he hasn't been able to produce one document or any other shred of evidence. These are monstrous charges against Mr. Logan and who knows who else. We have to see some evidence, some actual proof of all this illegal activity, this conspiracy to cover up and commit murder. If he doesn't have it, it's time to call this to a halt.”

The gallery's volume swelled and Hill gaveled it quiet, then glowered down over the edge of the bench. “Mr. Hardy, Mr. Torrey's right. If you've got some proof of any of these accusations, the court needs to see it now.”

Hardy stood alone in the center of the courtroom, in the now-dead stillness. “Of course, your honor,” he said, turning back to David and Cole at his table. He grabbed
the folder David held out for him and walked back before the bench. His footfalls echoed.

As expected, Glitsky had come into the Solarium first thing in the morning. He had, in fact, noticed the picture of Loretta Wager that Hardy had left out on the table. And seeing it had jogged his memory—it was the one item in the box that he hadn't had the heart to really look at. Which is what he did then, taking the cardboard backing out of the frame, discovering the NCR copies of checks that Elaine had hidden there after she'd removed them from Logan's office.