Nothing but the Truth (52 page)
He shook his head, nearly getting all the way to amused at the prosaic truth. More laundry.
By Friday, Griffin was checking alibis. Apparently he had spoken to Pierce, “JP,” and perhaps his wife, “CP.” “Time checks?” Evidently referring to Pierce’s alibi.
The weekend intervened.
Then on Monday, more alibi checking, this time with Kerry. And here Hardy consulted his own notes for corroboration. “SWA 1140, SD.” Southwest Airlines to San Diego around noon. That checked. But what had Kerry done before being picked up to go to the airport? Griffin’s notes didn’t give a clue.
A few lines down the page, and apparently still under Kerry, there was another number: “902.” If it was a date, it was over a month out of sync, so Hardy assumed it must be a time. And if it was a time, it would comport very closely with the hour of Bree’s death.
So what had Griffin discovered about Kerry’s whereabouts at nine o’clock. And why so precisely?
It had to be a phone call, Hardy reasoned, but where were the phone records? He flipped quickly through the few pages, but was sure he would have noticed them sooner if they’d been there, and sure enough, they weren’t.
He chewed on possibilities for a couple of minutes, then got up again and went to his desk, picked up the phone.
“Glitsky, homicide.”
“Hardy, bon vivant, scholar, champion of the oppress—”
“What?” Glitsky growled.
“I’m guessing Kerry called Bree or vice versa on the morning she was killed.”
“Great minds.”
“What do you mean?”
“Kerry’s got both a residence and a cell phone. I checked already. I got a rush call in on both sets of phone records this morning, see if maybe he didn’t sleep in late like he said he did. I’m waiting for the fax.”
“So what about Griffin? Did any phone records turn up under that backseat?”
“Not yet. I stopped by the garage again coming in. They barely got it cleaned out, much less catalogued.”
“But Griffin must have gotten the phone records, right? Don’t you guys do that?”
“I would hope so,” Glitsky said, “though I wouldn’t bet the ranch on it.”
“So where are they?”
“They’d be with the stuff you have if he’d filed them.”
“Uh huh. See if you can guess whether they are.”
Glitsky sighed. “His desk is cleaned out, Diz. It’s all somewhere. Stuff related to his cases supposedly got forwarded to the new teams.”
“Maybe they were in one of the bags in the trunk, tagged already?”
“Then they’d be downstairs in the evidence lockup.” Another sigh. “You think there’s some possible phone connection to Kerry?”
“It’d be sweet if there was.” Hardy hesitated. “I’m really starting to like the good candidate.”
“I told you last night, I might even vote for him.”
“That’s not how I meant ‘like.’ ”
“No,” Glitsky said. “I know what you meant.”
After he hung up, Hardy went back to his couch and his notes. He had come now to the last full day of Griffin’s life, and under Sunday found what he’d been hoping for: “Box T., Embarc.2, 10/5, 830. Burn. or Bwn. $!! — ??”
He had earlier assumed that this might be a reference to a post office box in one of the high-rises along the Embarcadero. Now he saw it in a different light. It wasn’t Box T. It was Bax T.
Baxter Thorne. As he read it now, Hardy realized that the note referred to an eight-thirty a.m. meeting the next day at Thorne’s Embarcadero office.
Hardy stared at the cryptic note. Here, finally, was Thorne connected to Bree in Griffin’s investigation. Had the inspector in fact gone to question Thorne on the morning of his death? Had they then taken a little drive?
Suddenly a detail kicked in. He bolted upright and checked his watch. It had at last gotten to eight o’clock, a little after. Jeff Elliot had told him he was setting up a meeting with Thorne first thing this morning, and at it he planned to bait-and-switch him into a corner.
Half joking, Hardy had warned Jeff to make sure he didn’t go alone. Now there was no joke about it.
He called Jeff’s home and got no response. At the reporter’s personal number at the
Chronicle
, he left a message, then checked the general switchboard. No. Mr. Elliot hadn’t come in yet. Would he care to leave a message?
Chronicle
, he left a message, then checked the general switchboard. No. Mr. Elliot hadn’t come in yet. Would he care to leave a message?
In a flash, Hardy was grabbing his jacket. At the office door, he stopped still, then turned and went back to his desk.
In thirty seconds, armed, he was flying down the stairs, pausing for a second at the reception desk. “Is David in yet?”
Phyllis replied in her usual icy fashion. “Not as yet. I haven’t heard from him at all this morning.”
“Is he at court?”
The gimlet eyes fixed on him. “I wouldn’t know, Mr. Hardy. I haven’t heard from him.”
“Oh, that’s right.” Hardy thought it was kind of sad that someday he knew he was going to kill Phyllis. “I think you said that.”
“Twice.”
“Right.” He couldn’t help himself. “So I guess he’s not in?”
Although it was fifteen or twenty blocks from his office to the Embarcadero, there was no point in trying to drive. Between the morning traffic and parking when he arrived, it would take longer than walking.
So Hardy was breathing hard from the forced march. In spite of that, he was also chilled from the fog and painfully aware of a gnawing in his stomach—he hadn’t eaten since midafternoon yesterday, those tasty few bites of lukewarm tortilla pie at Glitsky’s.
The directory listed the Fuels Management Consortium on the twenty-second floor and the elevator had him there in seconds. The office was anything but threatening. Lots of glass—they were floating in the clouds up here. Modern furniture, partitioned workstations, piped New Age music. The hum and bustle of a busy workplace.
“Can I help you?” The receptionist was a very young woman, perhaps even a teenager, with a warm smile.
Hardy returned it, fantasizing about what it would be like to have a cheerful presence, as opposed to Phyllis, greeting visitors to one’s workplace. “Is Mr. Thorne available?”
“I’m sorry, he’s in a meeting right now. I can take your name, though. Did you have an appointment?”
“No, no appointment. Can you tell me, is he by any chance with Jeff Elliot? A
Chronicle
reporter?”
Chronicle
reporter?”
She looked down, biting her lip, clearly wanting to do the right thing, not knowing if she should give out this information. Hardy smiled at her, told her his name and spelled it out. “I’m a friend of Mr. Elliot’s. I’m sure he’d like to know I’m here.”
The streets on the walk over had been cold with the fog-laden wind, but Baxter Thorne’s large corner office was positively arctic. The executive director of FMC wasn’t a big man by any means, and seemed a shrunken, pugnacious, malevolent gnome behind the cluttered expanse of his desk.
In his wheelchair, Jeff Elliot simply turned his head when Hardy was announced. Thorne nodded at the nice receptionist and she withdrew silently, closing the door behind her. No pleasantries of any kind were exchanged.
From the feel of things, the bait had been taken and the switch had just begun. “As a courtesy, Mr. Elliot, although I’m beginning to wonder why I would want to extend one, I’ve admitted your acquaintance. Now what?”
“You don’t know Mr. Hardy?”
Thorne threw a glance Hardy’s way, came back to Elliot. “I’ve never seen him in my life.” Hardy was taken aback by the voice—deep, quiet, cultured.
Elliot was shaking his head. “That’s not what I asked. I asked if you knew Mr. Hardy.”
“Should I?”
“You seem unable to answer the question, Mr. Thorne. I wonder why that is.”
Hardy, believing in his heart that Thorne was in some way behind the arson of his home, had to fight the urge to withdraw his weapon and end the cat-and-mouse right here. But he thought he’d let Jeff play the hand awhile first. At the very least, he already seemed to have gotten under Thorne’s skin.
The gnome cast a gaze out toward the side window, where the fog was swirling past. To Hardy, it felt for a moment as though they were in an airplane. The wind moaned—keened really—just at the threshold of sound.
Thorne looked back at Elliot. “I don’t know Mr. Hardy.”
“Are you familiar with the name?”
“I don’t know. It’s common enough. I may have heard it.”
Elliot seemed to be watching for some giveaway reaction, but if there was one, Hardy didn’t see it. “His wife is in jail now for refusing to testify before the grand jury about the death of Bree Beaumont. Have you heard of her? Bree Beaumont?”
Thorne’s face put his impatience on display. “What is this? Twenty questions? Who do I know? You’ve asked me about press releases on the Pulgas water poisoning. I’ve told you that you may check with my staff. The releases were not ours. They were not prepared here.”
“One of my colleagues found them outside in the hallway on Saturday, bound for distribution.”
Thorne shrugged. “So what? I didn’t write them. I didn’t put them there. Obviously, someone is trying to make us look bad, connected to these people, as they tried with Mr. Kerry over the weekend. There’s a pattern here, all right, but it’s not of my making.” Disappointed in humanity, he shook his head. “If this is your smoking gun, Mr. Elliot . . . well, there’s no story here.”
Spreading his hands, he assayed a cold smile. “My clients are good people, Mr. Elliot. They’re not terrorists. They’re concerned with exposing the endless lies that the oil companies have foisted upon an ignorant public, lies that polluted our air for years and now threaten—”
“How about Ellis Jackson? What’s your relationship with him?”
Having established what he thought was a plausible deniability, Thorne softened slightly, the voice become nearly avuncular. “What about him?”
“Is he your client?”
A sad shake of the head. “I’ve told you I’m not at liberty to disclose the identities of my clients. I of course knew Ellis Jackson when I worked for SKO.” Another reasonable smile. “The last time I checked, there was no crime in that. He’s a great man. Now, if you’re—”
“Not quite.” Hardy spoke up for the first time. “You never answered Jeff’s question about knowing Bree Beaumont. Did you talk with a Sergeant Griffin about her death?”
“Yes, I believe that was his name.”
“Then how could you not have heard of her?”
“I never said I hadn’t heard of her. Of course I know who she was. She’s been one of the most vocal and recognizable names in the field over the last decade. She was extremely courageous to change sides and go up against Goliath as she did.” He paused for emphasis, added matter-of-factly. “And of course they killed her for it.”
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