Nothing but the Truth (39 page)
Flores saw similar scenes every day, but that didn’t make it any easier. “Do you have insurance?”
“Yeah, but that’s not what I meant.”
“I know.”
Hardy turned to him. “Somebody did this, didn’t they?”
The captain shrugged. He might have some suspicions but he wasn’t going to share them with a civilian. “That’s always a thought. It’s why we’ve got arson investigators. ” He indicated a couple of guys poking around by what used to be the porch. “At this point it’s a little early to make that determination. But if you know something I don’t, I’ll pass it along.”
Hardy had his hands deep in his pockets. “I don’t know anything,” he said, referring to a lot more than the fire.
Flores scraped a toe along the burned hardwood floor and sighed. “You’re not going to want to hear this, but this might be somebody’s idea of a Halloween prank.” He paused. “It’s happened before.”
Hardy gave it a moment, shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
If anything, the morning fog had grown heavier.
One of the first things Hardy did after the Incident Commander stopped him was ask if he could get a patch-through to Glitsky’s home on the patrol car radio. Next was his brother-in-law Moses McGuire.
Now the lieutenant sat on the hood of his car, feet resting on the front bumper, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, his head down. Even with all his years in homicides, at terrible crime scenes, here Glitsky almost couldn’t bear to look.
Hardy had been silent, withdrawn with shock and rage, when Abe had arrived. Gradually, Glitsky had gotten him away from the arson people, from the house itself, where the effects of the fire weren’t so pervasive. Now he was coming out of it, beginning to pace. “I’ll tell you one thing—they think they’re warning me off? They think I’m going away now? They should have killed me instead.”
“Who’s that?”
“Whoever did this, Abe.”
“Somebody did this to get at you?”
Hardy nodded. “It’s a warning. It has to be this Beaumont thing.” Hardy stopped in front of him. “You think it’s not?”
Glitsky was silent.
Hardy raised his voice. “Well what the hell do you think this was, Abe? Spontaneous combustion?”
Glitsky met Hardy’s eyes. “I don’t think it’s a great time to get in an argument with you, how about that?” He slid off the car, put a hand on his friend’s shoulder.
Hardy could only manage a nod. Glitsky gave his shoulder a last squeeze, moved off a few steps, then turned and with an almost visible effort, forced himself to look at the house. “If you need me, I’ll be downtown. I’m going to work.”
Flores was at his elbow, and Hardy was back in the house, in the little enclosed area behind the kitchen where he kept his safe. Flores didn’t want to let him back in—they might trample over more evidence. The captain made it very clear that until they were done with their investigation, this was the fire department’s house, no longer his. But the arrival of Glitsky—a highly ranked city cop who was obviously a personal friend—had given Hardy some credibility, and Flores cut him a little slack. They could go up through the back door, and Hardy could get what he needed, although he had to show Flores his license to carry, and even then, when Flores saw what he wanted, he could tell he was pushing it.
But this time he felt no twinge of the reluctance he’d felt the last time he’d gone for his gun. There was also an old badge from his days as an assistant DA. He didn’t think too hard before grabbing it. Then, tucking his Police Special into his belt, he pulled his jacket down over it and walked back into the desolation in the front yard area.
Moses had finally arrived a few minutes after Glitsky’s departure, and now was standing at the front side of the house by the chimney, which was still standing. Moses had picked up something and held it out as Hardy and Flores mushed through the mud. “Start your new collection, ” Moses said somberly.
It was one of the exquisitely fragile Venetian glass elephants that had grazed, cavorted, and trumpeted on their mantel over the past decade, that Moses had rearranged with nearly every visit. Until last night there had been fifteen of them—Hardy had just recently acquired the latest one for their anniversary. And now against impossible odds at least one had survived, perhaps blasted out into the yard by the force of water.
Hardy took it and turned it in his hand, then handed it back to Moses, asking his brother-in-law to hold on to it for him.
After ten more minutes of surveying damage, he excused himself. Moses didn’t have to open the Shamrock for another four hours. He agreed that Hardy needed to go down to the jail and break the news to Frannie. Then to the kids. Moses would stay here with Flores and take care of the first round of details. He was glad to be able to help.
But Hardy wasn’t going to the jail. He pulled over at the first gas station he came to and called Phil Canetta’s home number.
A tired, worried woman’s voice answered. “Hello. Phil?”
Hardy told Mrs. Canetta who he was, that he was working with her husband. Could he get in touch with him this morning? It was important.
“I don’t know where Phil is. He went out after dinner and never came home. He always calls,” she said. “If you do talk to him . . .”
Hardy promised that he’d have Phil call her, then hung up, frowning. This was unexpected and unpleasant. Canetta had left Freeman’s office, went somewhere, presumably on this investigation, and hadn’t come home?
The wind gusted around the phone booth and he hunched himself further into his jacket. He dropped another quarter and punched some buttons.
“This better be good.”
“Jeff, it’s Dismas Hardy. Sorry to wake you, but I need to know where Al Valens stays when he’s in town.”
“You need that, huh? How about I need some more sleep? What time is it anyway?”
“Early, but I’ve got a hot item for you. Swing by my house sometime this morning.”
“After I get up.”
“Fine. That’ll be good enough. Valens, though?”
Jeff thought a moment. “I think the Clift. What do you got? Is this about Beaumont?”
“Good guess,” Hardy said, “though what isn’t lately?”
“You’re right, everything.” The reporter sounded truly exhausted. “What time is it?” he asked for a second time.
“I don’t know, Jeff. What’s the matter, you get home late last night?”
“As a matter of fact, after you left I hung for a while, talked to a colleague about this very stuff, finally went home and had dinner, couldn’t sleep, and decided I had to pay a call on Damon.”
“At his home?”
“I’m a sympathetic reporter, remember. He’s a night owl. He’d see me. He has before.”
“So when was this?”
“Late, a little after midnight. I felt like I’d never get any sleep if I didn’t get an answer or two on all this stuff.”
“And?”
“And he wasn’t home.”
“Until when?”
“I left at one and he still hadn’t come in.”
“And yet you got to sleep after all.”
“Not enough. I’ll catch him today after—” Jeff sighed. “This thing with you—you ought to be able to tell me about it now over the phone, don’t you think?”
But Hardy didn’t want to do that, knowing there was a lot more power in the physical reality. “Come by the house,” he said. “You’ll be intrigued, I promise.”
It was against the rules, but the clerk was persuaded by the badge to give Mr. Hardy of the DA’s office the room number of Mr. Valens. He took the elevator to the fifteenth floor and walked the long hallway back to the suite at the end.
Hardy heard some muttering, “All right, all right, just a second,” and prepared himself to move. It took all of his restraint not to draw the gun. When Valens cracked the door, he put his shoulder against it and kept coming.
“What the . . .” Valens was wearing slacks and shoes, but still was wrapped in one of the hotel’s white bath-robes, and now he clutched it in front of him.
Hardy quickly closed the door behind them. “Sorry to be so pushy, but we have to talk.”
“Who the hell . . . ?”
“Dismas Hardy. Maybe you remember. We met briefly yesterday with Mr. Kerry. You said you’d never called Ron Beaumont. Is any of this coming back to you?”
Valens was backing away, but got stopped by a chair. He nearly fell, then righted himself. “Sure, Mr. Hardy. I remember.” He grabbed at the robe, which had fallen open. He was getting his bearings back, tying the sash, but still obviously wary of the crazy man who’d crashed his door. “I called you just last night at your home to correct that. I had forgotten that I did in fact call Ron. With the press of yesterday’s events it temporarily slipped my mind. Didn’t you get that message?”
“No, I didn’t. You know why? Because my answering machine went up in flames this morning with the rest of my house.”
The fiddling with the robe stopped. “Are you saying your house caught fire?”
“Not all by itself. Somebody helped it.”
Valens drew a deep breath and spoke very carefully, still clearly unnerved by Hardy’s entrance, his continued presence. “I’m very sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah, well, I’m in a little bit of a bad mood about it myself.”
Valens sat against the back of the chair. He stole a glance at his watch, at the door.
“Are you expecting somebody?”
A nervous shrug. “Damon’s got a breakfast meeting in an hour. I’m scheduled to pick him up.”
But Hardy shook his head. “Not until we clear up a few things between us. Bree Beaumont, the fire, like that.”
Valens straightened up, put on a face. “But I really don’t understand. What do those things have to do with me?”
Suddenly, Hardy’s adrenaline seemed to kick itself up another notch. He pulled the gun from his belt, took a step toward Valens and pointed it at him. “What do they have to do with you? I’ll tell you. I’m investigating Bree Beaumont and you lied to me yesterday. I’m getting close. The fire was somebody warning me to stay away and the only person I can think of who’s got any reason is you. How about that? Is that clearer?”
Valens spread his hands. Patent terror. “I didn’t set your house on fire, Mr. Hardy. I’m in the last days of a political campaign that I’ve been waging for nearly a year. Bree Beaumont is not in my life. Damon Kerry is. I didn’t lie to you.” Another empty gesture. “Please, you don’t need that gun. What you’re calling a lie was a simple mistake. I forgot something, that was all.”
But Hardy’s blood was way up, his voice dripping sarcasm. “Oh yes, you
forgot.
You called the husband of a murdered woman who’d worked on your campaign, and it clean slipped your mind.” He snapped at him, raised the gun for show. “You
forgot
that? I don’t believe you.”
forgot.
You called the husband of a murdered woman who’d worked on your campaign, and it clean slipped your mind.” He snapped at him, raised the gun for show. “You
forgot
that? I don’t believe you.”
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