Nothing but the Truth (32 page)
Hardy wanted to keep him going. “I keep hearing how pretty she was.”
“A couple of miles beyond pretty, Diz. In any event,” he continued, “here’s a bottle of champagne in a bucket on the coffee table, and otherwise the house is empty. So ask me, do I feel like I’m intruding?
Moi?
”
Moi?
”
“So what was it?”
“Evidently she was planning to surprise him with a little welcome homecoming after the road trip. So he shows about ten minutes after I arrive, opens the door and it’s like, uh, ‘Hi, Bree, fancy you being here. Now, how ’bout them gas additives?’ Call me a genius, but I saw right through it.”
“You’re a genius.”
Jeff nodded. “Somebody has to be. So anyway, they were together, and I knew it, and they knew I knew it. And I told them I’d keep a lid on it.”
“I’m just curious, but why would you do that?”
He shook his head as though mystified himself. “I don’t know, Diz. I like the guy. I like his politics. It meant a lot to them.” He met Hardy’s eyes. “Bottom line is I just decided. It shames me to say it, but I might even do the same for you.”
“You don’t have to,” Hardy replied. “I wasn’t sleeping with Bree. But after she was killed, weren’t you tempted to talk to the police?”
“Why? Nobody’s saying Damon’s a suspect.”
Hardy looked a question. “At the least, Jeff, she’s murdered and you know he’s her lover. That’s got to be relevant to the homicide investigation. Maybe even crucial.”
“It’s also relevant to Damon’s campaign, maybe even crucial. He didn’t kill her, Diz. There is no way. Plus, I want to see him get elected, and I sure as hell don’t have to tell the cops what I know. Maybe if some inspector would have come and made some connection, asked me directly . . . I don’t know, I might have been tempted. But nobody did. Nobody has.”
“But as you say, Jeff, it is all connected. It’s got to be.” For emphasis, Hardy patted the desk between them. “So today’s bonus question is who did the water? What’s the Clean Earth Alliance?”
Jeff shifted again in his wheelchair, brought a hand to his tired eyes and rubbed them. Glancing at his watch, he looked up suddenly to see that outside a sepia dusk had settled. “When am I going to learn not to work on weekends? Why did I come in here on a Saturday?”
Hardy leaned forward. Jeff knew something else and was wrestling with how much to reveal. Hardy kept it low affect. “You were going to write some graphs on Frannie.”
Which brought it all back home. Jeff sat still a moment, then wheeled himself around to a low file cabinet. Back at the desk, he laid open the thick file folder, began turning pages. “The Yosemite Militia. The
Valdez
Avengers. Earth Now.” He looked up. “And today’s Clean Earth Alliance. Get the picture?”
Valdez
Avengers. Earth Now.” He looked up. “And today’s Clean Earth Alliance. Get the picture?”
“They’re all related?”
“Let’s say I’d bet their headquarters is some cabin in Montana.”
“So who runs them?”
“Well, this is a matter of some debate.” Jeff pulled pages and ran down a synopsis of damage these groups had done, most of it in the realm of nuisance—vandalism and graffiti—but in two cases something much more serious.
The
Valdez
Avengers had claimed responsibility for a pipe bomb explosion at an Exxon gas station in Tacoma, Washington, that had killed four people and injured twelve. Jeff looked up from the page. “They didn’t want people to invest in Exxon. That daring raid killed a little girl, six years old. Boy, that showed her.”
Valdez
Avengers had claimed responsibility for a pipe bomb explosion at an Exxon gas station in Tacoma, Washington, that had killed four people and injured twelve. Jeff looked up from the page. “They didn’t want people to invest in Exxon. That daring raid killed a little girl, six years old. Boy, that showed her.”
More recently, at the huge refinery in Richmond, just across the Bay, three guards had been severely beaten in a thus far unclaimed attack. The refinery’s statement was that nothing had been taken, and that the rest of their security team had driven off the five assailants, although they’d been unable to capture them. “But you want my opinion,” Jeff concluded, “that’s when these clowns got their hands on the MTBE.”
“But couldn’t they just as well have gone to the gas station, pumped it out at a buck twenty-nine a gallon?”
“Sure, but what’s the fun in that? Diz, these people are thugs. They get their rocks off shaking things up, making the Big Statement. Like today.”
Hardy leaned back, crossed a leg. “And you’ve got all this stuff in one folder.”
“Right. Like Bree and Frannie and Damon, it’s all connected somehow. And now this stuff”—he motioned down to his pile of paper—“it’s part of that, too.”
“So who’s behind it? I had a Caloco guy today tell me that SKO funded this kind of activity.”
But this didn’t fit Jeff’s worldview. “No, I’d be surprised at that. SKO’s big. These independent bozos seem to hate big.”
Hardy pointed at the folders. “You got any stories about attacks on ethanol producers or distributors?”
Jeff didn’t have to look. “No, now that you mention it. And that’s a good point.”
“Maybe these groups don’t know who’s bankrolling them. Maybe SKO’s got a front.”
Jeff nodded. “But that means . . .” He stopped, the idea germinating. “Why would they . . . ?”
“I’ve been using this mantra all day,” Hardy said. “You ought to try it.”
“What’s that?”
“Three billion dollars. Say it a few times. It’ll grow on you.”
19
David Freeman was not asleep and he wasn’t reading anything. But he was completely still, his feet propped up on the table in his Solarium, which was the nickname for the conference room just off the main lobby in his building. He wasn’t wearing shoes, and one of his argyle socks had a hole in the toe. His cigar spiked the room with its rich odor and left the air with a blue tint, although there was no sign that Freeman was drawing on it, or even was aware of it, stuck there in the front of his face.
Hardy tapped once on the open door.
Not a muscle moved. Freeman sighed. “I was just thinking about you. How you doing?”
“I’ve been better.” Hardy pulled a chair and dropped himself into it. For a long moment, neither man said anything. Eventually, Hardy started. “I just called home for my messages. Did you know it’s Halloween?”
“What is?”
“Tonight. It’s Halloween.”
For the first time, Freeman favored him with a glance, went back to his cigar, blew a long plume. “You forgot. Your kids are upset.”
It sounded like a chortle, but there wasn’t any humor in it. None at all. “What the hell am I . . . ?” He laid a hand on the table with exaggerated calm, drummed his fingertips. Da-da-dum, da-da-dum. “I’ve got a meeting here in ten minutes, David. lt’s possibly even an important meeting, having to do with my wife being in jail, trying to get her out. Maybe I’m wrong, but this seems like something I ought to spend some of my time on.”
Another moment. Freeman had nothing to say, which was just as well. Hardy needed to vent.
“So we got a killer I’m trying to find without any help from the police. We got the city’s water supply on hold for a couple of weeks. We got their mother rotting over downtown, have I mentioned that? And all these are somehow related and I’ve got no idea how. And do you know what the real problem is? I mean, the really big goddamn most important thing wrong with the world right now tonight?” The drumming had picked up in tempo. “You want to know?”
Humoring him, Freeman nodded imperceptibly. “Sure.”
“All right, I’ll tell you. It’s that I am such a shitty father and care so little about my children that I forgot the most important holiday in their young and precious lives. It never hit my radar all day. Can you imagine? What else could I possibly have been thinking about?”
Freeman nodded again. “It’s the nineties. Guy like you, you can’t
not
be an insensitive cretin. Nothing to do but ignore it.”
not
be an insensitive cretin. Nothing to do but ignore it.”
Freeman was right. There wasn’t any point bitching about Hardy’s priorities. They were what they were.
He was that 90s pariah, the linear, logical, fact-burdened, classically trained human. Even worse, some wiring flaw had predestined him to be more oriented toward justice than mercy. The rest of his San Francisco world was sensitive and child-centered and politically correct and of course the children’s fun on Halloween was much more important than any work Hardy might ever have to do.
He would just have to get over it.
In some places, say Kosovo or Rwanda, Hardy was pretty sure many fathers didn’t take time out every day to play with their children. Their goal—and he felt the same about his own—was simple survival. He wondered if kids in these countries considered their fathers insensitive.
The soul-wrenching truth of it was that Hardy cared more about his wife and children than about any
job.
Than about anything, for that matter. But this—today, what he was doing—was not some job. This was real life—his and Frannie’s and the kids’ real lives in a real crisis. Just like Ron Beaumont’s kids and their lives.
job.
Than about anything, for that matter. But this—today, what he was doing—was not some job. This was real life—his and Frannie’s and the kids’ real lives in a real crisis. Just like Ron Beaumont’s kids and their lives.
And yet somehow both of his kids had assumed he’d zip on back to the Avenues and take them out trick-or-treating.It frustrated him beyond his ability to articulate. Young they might be, but could they really be unaware of the gravity of this situation? Of how much he treasured them? Of the
reason
behind every breath he took? Could they be that blind?
reason
behind every breath he took? Could they be that blind?
If they were, where had he failed them?
The old man swung his legs down to the ground, put his elbows on the table. “What did you mean? You know they’re related but don’t know how? This water poisoning and Frannie? Is that what you’re saying?”
Hardy was accustomed to Freeman’s brain—it tended to take leaps in any direction that looked promising—but even so, it took him a second. And the segue, though abrupt, was a good thing. It put him back on his work, on what he had to do, and the feeling part of it be damned.
When he’d made everything safe and secure again, it would have been worth it, and they could either understand why he’d done it and the way he’d done it or not. But either way, it would be done.
He nodded at Freeman. “And while we’re on it, possibly the election this Tuesday.”
Out in the lobby, they heard a harsh buzzing sound. “That would be Canetta,” he said. “My appointment. You want to stick around, I won’t kick you out.”
“Are you kidding me? You couldn’t if you tried.”
“Bill Tilton was, in fact, listed.”
They had gotten settled back in the smoky, dim room. Introductions made. Freeman brought up to speed. The landlord’s presence, Hardy sensed, only grudgingly accepted by Canetta. But the sergeant had information and he wanted to show off what he’d found. “This isn’t so tough,” the sergeant said. “I could do this.”
“Sounds like you already did, Phil.” Hardy would give Canetta all the strokes he needed to keep him pumped up.
But Canetta seemed to be motivated on his own. “He’s an agent with Farmer’s Fund Life Insurance. I called from the station so when he called back he’d know I was legitimately the police.”
“Smart,” Hardy said. He raised his eyes to Freeman, silently told him to shut up. “And he did call back?”
“Wasn’t even an hour. So I asked him direct. Told him this was a murder investigation and we needed his cooperation. What’d he call Ron about? He said the company was a little sticky with the payout on Bree, her being murdered and all. On the side, Tilton tells me the claims guy doesn’t want to send a check—we’re talking two big ones—until it’s pretty damn clear Ron didn’t kill her. So I kept him yakking and he said it’s the first time he’s had this situation and it’s made things ugly around his office. Now, this next, you’re going to like this.”
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