The 13th Juror (21 page)

25

"That man was the devil."

Penny Roman, mother of Melissa, who had died from the botched abortion attempt, believed it.  She was not old but somehow conveyed age — her hair was frosted to a flat glaze, her make-up heavy.  She wore a calico print grannie dress with a frilly collar that had probably been designed for a teenager and the effect, as she walked in her flip-flops, carrying a tray with coffee and mugs, was nearly-grotesque.

"Now, Pen."  Her husband Cecil sported a clipped graying mustache, a pencil in his ear, over-the-counter reading glasses, green slacks.  "He might have been in the hands of the devil, doing the work of the devil…"

"He was the devil."

Cecil shrugged at Hardy.  "It's been very hard.  You can't imagine."

"I'm sorry."

He was almost sorrier that he'd come out here, by Mission Dolores, to the thousand-square-foot house with the feeling of doors and windows that never opened.  Jesus and Mary peered down from three framed prints in the small room where they all sat, cramped and airless, Hardy and Cecil on the chintz-covered sofa and Penny on the from half of a wing-back chair.  An oversized, ornately framed picture of their daughter Melissa smiled at Hardy from the end table.  Cecil wheeled up a little metal portable stand for the coffee tray and their cups.

The Romans were an unturned stone that he had discussed with Freeman, who had upbraided him for his scruples about whether or not the Romans had actually ever dreamed of hurting Larry Witt.  The question was:  Could he point at them?  Could they, however tangentially, deflect the prosecution's case?

He also didn't love the idea that he was here on this Tuesday morning under false pretenses, keeping the appointment he had made with them yesterday after telling them he was a policeman.  If Terrell or Glitsky couldn't or wouldn't do it…

When he had been an Assistant District Attorney Hardy had gone shopping one day in South San Francisco at the badge store.  Badges were neither sanctioned nor forbidden by the office — everyone realized that sometimes they came in handy, especially with people whose English might not be perfect and who were used to looking at badges, who knew essentially what they meant even if some of the nuances were missing.

So he had been Officer Hardy on the phone, and now he had a badge.  They had let him right in.

"This is just routine, especially after this much time.  We keep trying to catch up.  Someday, maybe."  Hardy smiled ingratiatingly, sipped his coffee and opened the manila folder he had brought with him.  The folder did not contain a police report on the reported vandalism to Dr. Witt's car.  Instead, Hardy had borrowed for the morning his own copy of the police report on his client Mr. Frankl — the man who had thought — erroneously as it had turned out — that he had a defense for DUI.  The Romans did not notice the deception.

"What does he say about us?"

Cecil was trying to see something he recognized in the folder.  Hardy moved it away.  "Frankly, he accuses you of breaking into his car, stealing his radio…"

"That's ridiculous!" Penny spilled coffee over into her saucer.  "He's a liar, too."

"He's not anything anymore, ma'am.  He's dead."

"Yes, I know that.  Of course."  Her lips tightened, trying to hold it in and failing.  "And I'm glad he is."

"Now, Pen."  Cecil reached his left hand across the table and laid it on his wife's knee.  "We have to be Christians here.  Hate the sin but love the sinner."

"I can't, I can't do it."

Cecil patted the knee absently.  His attention back at Hardy, his hand stayed where it was and it made him sit crookedly.  "Dr. Witt was a sinner, Officer.  But that doesn't mean we broke into his car."  He gestured around the room.  "Do we look like the… like we steal radios out of cars?  Why would we?  What would it prove?  Would it bring our daughter back?"

Hardy was beginning to think it was pretty likely that, in fact, they hadn't broken into Dr. Witt's car.  If anyone had.  He jotted a reminder to ask Jennifer.

"You say Dr. Witt was a sinner, though.  Did you know him personally?"

Hardy saw the tendons of Cecil's left hand rise up.  He was squeezing his wife's knee hard.  There was no reaction from her — Cecil's calm was chilling.  "Dr. Witt was an abortionist, Officer.  He killed our daughter."

They went through it, as Hardy knew they would have to.  Penny began to cry, silently, unmoving.  To them both, it was a seamless tale of evil's cause and effect — their daughter's unfortunate lust, her sin, not accepting God's will and bringing to fruit the life she had created, allowing Witt to turn the blade on her baby, finally casting her lot with the abortionists, the killers and — as Cecil and Penny had known would happen — they wound up killing her.

Hardy closed the folder.

"He deserved what he got."  Penny couldn't hold herself in any longer.  Cecil's hand tightened again.  "We read about it in the papers, naturally.  The Lord takes care of His own."

"I think someone else took care of Dr. Witt," Hardy said.

"He wasn't the Lord's, Officer.  He was the devil.  He was the last instrument of Melissa's torture.  We never even saw his car.  I don't know what kind of car he had."  Penny began crying.  "We didn't know anything about him.  Now he's coming back from the dead to punish us some more."

Hardy was standing up, wanting out of there.  "No, ma'am, he's not.  He's not going to punish you.  I'm closing this file and we're going to forget all about it.  I believe you."

Gradually, the fire went out.  Penny sat back, deflated, managing a weak "thank you."

Cecil walked with him to the door, took a couple of steps outside.  It was another clear morning, with a light breeze.  The Sutro Tower sparkled in the sun a mile away.  Cecil stared at it for a long moment.  "It does get meted out, you know.  Punishment."

"We hope so."  Hardy the cop, playing the role.

"I'm talking about him, about Dr. Witt."

Hardy waited.

"You know, after he killed Melissa, before he was killed himself, I knew he was living in his fine house, making all kinds of money, profiting form his sins…"

Hardy wondered if Cecil knew that Witt had volunteered for his work at the Mission Hills Clinic.  But this wasn't the time to tell him.

"And I know that's the way in this world.  Sinners prosper.  But once in a while we see proof.  We see some justice here in this world.  It gets meted out."

"Yes, sir."  They shook hands.

It wasn't until he was back downtown, parking at Sutter Street, that he realized what Cecil had said.  Penny may have believed she knew — they knew — nothing about Dr. Witt, but Cecil obviously knew he lived in a fine house up by Sutro Tower.  And he had known that before he'd read about it in the papers.

*     *     *     *     *

Hardy talked to Jennifer and learned that Larry's car had been vandalized but he hadn't reported it to the police.  What were the police going to do about it?  He'd simply gotten it fixed, bought a new radio.  That's what you did.  Insurance had covered it.

Larry had been an only child and his parents had died long ago.  The Witt family had been alone in the world and they felt like it.  That was why, she said, Larry was so protective, wouldn't let her go out on her own, wanted to know where she was all the time — so he could be sure she was all right, that the family was safe.

She and Larry had agreed that they didn't want Phil and Nancy to be Matt's guardians.  So Larry had asked one of his cousins — Laurie something who lived down in Orange County — if she'd take the responsibility if it ever came down to that.

But all that notwithstanding, Jennifer's family — as closest next of kin — in fact would have inherited if Jennifer had been killed along with Larry and Matt.

Still, after all that, and though he'd be happy if it turned out that Tom or Phil or even the Romans had had a hand in Larry Witt's murder, Hardy didn't really believe any of them had.  He was reaching.

After his day with her physicians, his gut told him that Jennifer was probably guilty of what she'd been charged with.  He'd just about come around to believing, as Freeman did, that she had killed first-husband Ned and second-husband Larry to stop them from beating her.  And somehow, tragically, by mistake, Matt had gotten in the way.

*     *     *     *     *

Frannie put her hand up against the Plexiglas and Jennifer did the same.  They stared at one another for a long moment.  Frannie hadn't really planned to visit Jennifer again.  She'd left the kids with Erin, intended to go shopping.

Maybe it had been the scene with Jennifer's father and brother, maybe she just wanted reassurance that they weren't really so dangerous.  Maybe she felt a little guilty, starting something with Jennifer she wasn't prepared to follow through on.  She wasn't sure — it was complicated, but the fact was that she was here now.

Jennifer broke the silence.  "You don't look so good.  Are you all right?"

Slowly at first, then gradually building into a torrent of words, surprising herself, Frannie told about her fight with her brother Moses, the trouble with Dismas that seemed to be getting a life of its own, her guilt over leaving her children — again — with Erin Cochran, Rebecca's grandmother.  Only at the end did she get to Phil and Tom DiStephano and their threat last night.

"My father and brother came to your house?  Why did they do that?"

"I think to beat up Dismas.  Maybe just threaten him.  They were pretty drunk, I think.  But it scared me to death."

Jennifer's eyes went to the hands pressed together on either side of the glass.  "Those idiots.  It never ends."  She let out a long breath.  What were they threatening him about?"

"Something about molesting your mother.  Dismas told me he'd gone and seen her—"

"I know.  And my father had beaten her up.  He told me that, too."

Silence.

Frannie was scared.  She'd been frightened all morning, jumping at little noises, when the telephone rang, imagining the rooms and their house violated, the door broken down, the windows shattered.  Angry, or embarrassed, or both, she'd had no heart to discuss it with Dismas before he'd gone out.

"I just talked to him again, you know.  Your husband.  He wanted to know if… he wanted to know some things about my parents.  He didn't mention anything about last night."

"Was he here?"

Jennifer shook her head.  "He called me on the phone.  It's a hassle getting up here anyway and he just had a couple of questions.  No, you and he are… separate."  She paused.  "Men are separate.  That's just the way it is.  I tell them what they need to know.  They ask me questions and I answer them."

"So what about your father?  What do you think he's going to do?"

"I don't know.  Against another man?  I don't know.  Or my brother either."

"Do you think they'd hurt our kids?  If they touched…"  Frannie stopped, unable to say it.

"You'd kill them?"

Frannie nodded, startled by the sudden realization that she would kill to protect her children.  "Is that what happened?" she asked.  "Larry started hitting Matt?"

For a moment, she thought Jennifer was just going to nod and say "yes."  But there was a withdrawal, something in her posture, her eyes.  Her hand came away from the Plexiglas.

"I wouldn't worry," she said finally.  "I think it's okay.  My father won't do anything.  Besides, men only hit when they think you won't hit back."  Jennifer sat forward, legs crossed.  "I'd kill for a cigarette," she said.  And added, "One time Ned, my first husband, decided this dentist was coming on to me and he went over, pounded his chest a couple of times — or at least he said he did — then came back and beat me up."  Her face broke into a sad, almost wistful smile.  "Same as always."

"What did you do?" Frannie was leaning forward, her hand alone pressed to the glass.  "How could you let that go on?"

Jennifer sighed again, crossing her arms and staring into the middle distance above them.

"I'm listening," Frannie said.

Jennifer's hand moved to the Plexiglas.  Her face seemed to harden with the memory, whatever it was.  She was whispering, intent, eyes on Frannie's.  "You don't want to know."

*     *     *     *     *

Hardy had mentioned it more or less casually — an annoyance more than anything else — but Abe Glitsky did not like the fact that Phil and Tom DiStephano had gone proactive on his best friend.  It wasn't so much the threat itself — after all, nothing had really happened, no serious crime had taken place.  Glitsky's view that all but the most heinous acts went uninvestigated and unpunished in San Francisco did not mean, however, that uncivilized behavior was okay by him.  His days as a beat cop were not so far behind him that he didn't remember the force a policeman could bring to bear on an individual who needed a lesson in etiquette or control.

Phil DiStephano was a plumber who worked out of a medium-sized shop near the Kezar Pavilion.  The dispatcher told Glitsky that Phil and two of the other guys were out to lunch and ought to be back within fifteen minutes, so he decided to wait.

It wasn't that long.  Glitsky stood up, the scar through his lips stretching into a white line as he found himself enduring the half-hostile stares of the three rednecks.  Half-Caucasian, sometimes he found himself hating white people more than he ever hated all but the most repugnant of blacks.  He thought it was probably a flaw in his character.  He'd work on it someday, he really would.

The dispatcher said something and the biggest of the three men turned around.  He spoke in mannered polite tones, ostensibly cooperative.  "I'm Phil DiStephano, is there a problem?"

Glitsky had flashed his badge earlier and no doubt the dispatcher had passed along the information that this casually dressed strapping black man was the law.  The other two plumbers flanked Phil but seemed to be waiting for an excuse now to go to the back room or their truck or wherever it was they went while they waited to fix drains and unplug sewer lines.  He took out his badge again.  "If you could spare a couple of minutes."