The 13th Juror (36 page)

"Twenty grams."  Hardy grimaced at the hollow sound, at the hole in the wall.  Another dart flew, smacking the wallboard high and wide of the target.  "they're made out of tungsten.  They're pretty good darts."

Glitsky fired the last one.  It grazed the bottom of the board before sticking, again, in the wall.  The inspector headed for the door, stopping when he got there.  "I don't know," he said.  "I think they might be broke."  Then he was gone.

*     *     *     *     *

He was almost through the first, and had another four working days — Villars had given everyone a week off before the penalty phase was to begin.  Hardy was grateful for the prep time, but the probable reason for it galled him — Powell was in the stretch run for his election and it seemed Villars was cutting him some slack.

He couldn't, of course, prove it, but that didn't make him any less suspicious.

Freeman hadn't been to the office either, which was just as well.  He was sick to death of Freeman and his histrionics.  He was also sick of himself, of his waffling — every chance he'd got, he'd backed off in the face of the older man's resolve and personality.  Half a dozen times he should have just stood his ground.  Said this was what was what and take it or leave it.  But partly he'd
wanted
  to believe that Freeman was right and would prevail.  Partly because if Freeman won he wouldn't have the burden of trying to save Jennifer's life.  He had wanted so badly to get out from under the responsibility that he'd convinced himself that Freeman's strategies would likely work.

He had been whipping himself over his own deficiencies.  Time and again he had driven from Olympia Way down to Haight Street, trying to find a shortcut that would undermine his argument about Jennifer getting to the bank.

But through it all ran a common thread.  He had believed — he had never questioned — that Jennifer had run where she said she had.  At least she had run on paved streets.  He had dutifully consulted his map.  No, he'd convinced himself there was no flaw.  Even if Jennifer had taken a slightly shorter route, as long as she stayed on the streets she could not have made it to the bank and also killed Larry.

Now he realized he had ignored UCSF medical center, about ten square blocks of campus and buildings at the base of Mount Sutro between Jennifer's home and her bank.  He had seen it, of course — he knew it was
there
.  But he had never gotten out of his car and walked through it.  On the map, it looked impenetrable, a dense maze of impassable structures.  The huge medical buildings gave the impression of a fortress, not a park anyone could simply stroll through.  It did have a wall — why did he think it was solid, without gates?  Why didn't he get out and stroll through and look?

Because he was too clever for his own good, and Freeman's and, most important, Jennifer's.  All his careful calculations about time and distance and how Jennifer couldn't possibly have made it to the bank and accessed her account when she did and still get back home in time to commit the crimes didn't really signify what he had been convinced they did.  He had set Freeman up for Powell's devastating rebuttal.  And that, in his opinion, even more than Freeman's ego and tactical blunders, had cost them the verdict.

*     *     *     *     *

Hardy had always, in theory at least, considered himself more or less in the death-penalty camp.  He didn't pretend it was a deterrent.  What it did do, though, was eliminate the possibility that the person who was executed was going to kill another innocent citizen — either when they got out on parole, or, if they were doing life without parole, during their life behind bars.

He had favored what he called the mosquito argument — if you killed a mosquito that bit you, you at least guaranteed that
that particular mosquito
wasn't going to bite you again.  Other mosquitos didn't have to know about it and tell each other and get deterred — if another one bit you, you killed that one too.  That way, at least you had less mosquitos in the population.

But he
knew
Jennifer.  She was not a mosquito.  He understood why she had done what she had done
if
she had done it.  And he didn't think she should get the death penalty for that.

Here, he knew, at least generally speaking, he was getting on shaky ground.  Every murderer had somebody who knew him — or her.  Somebody who understood that they'd had a lousy childhood or whatever it was that had made them believe it was somehow okay to kill as an expression of rage or frustration.  The flip side to that, of course, was that the victims also had people who had loved them, whose lives were ruined and hearts broken.  What about them?

To say nothing of the victims themselves.  They didn't ask to be victims, did they?  They had done nothing wrong and now they were dead, and generally that's where Hardy drew the line — the people who made innocent people dead deserved to die.

Hardy believed that at some point, adults in society had to take responsibility for what they were, for who they'd become.  If as grown-ups, they'd turned into killers, they didn't deserve any breaks. 
Adios
, you had your chance and you blew it.

It was a tragedy all around, there was no denying that.  It was a tragedy that children got atrociously bad starts in life, that people turned out bad.  But it was the world.  It was a worse wrong, a worse tragedy, to keep giving bad people the opportunity to do truly bad things again and again.

But what about someone like Jennifer, who had two husbands who beat her?  Whose life had been a living hell?  Where did she fit in?

41

The next morning, as he was gathering his things, getting ready to go to the jail to see Jennifer, the telephone rang.

"Mr. Hardy?  This is Donna Bellows with Goldberg Mullen & Roake."  As soon as she said the name Hardy recognized the sultry voice.  Ms. Bellows, the lawyer who had referred Jennifer to Freeman, was another lead he probably hadn't followed up enough, another unreturned call that he hadn't pursued.  He said hello somewhat warily.

"I found out about the verdict over the weekend and I was out of town yesterday, but I realized I never called you back.  I'm sorry.  I suppose it's too late now anyway.

"It's never too late if you've got something," Hardy said.  "I'm sure David Freeman's working on the appeal right now."

"Well, I don't think I have anything."

Hardy waited.  Finally he said, "Whatever you do have, I'll take.  I did find out that Crane & Crane was YBMG's law firm, although what that means about Larry Witt…"

Bellows sighed over the telephone.  "That's what I found, too, where I had heard the name."  Again Hardy waited.  "I've had a busy few moths, and I've had two secretaries quit on me, and my files are a mess, so I came in a couple of weeks ago and tried to get some of this cleaned up.  It should have been filed with Larry's stuff but it wasn't.  In any event, I can't imagine it's of any importance—"

"What is it?"

"It's an offering circular.  Larry had sent it around to me with some questions but I'd been on vacation over Christmas."

"Maybe that's why he called Crane — to answer the questions."

"He did call them?  Directly?"

"Once.  From his home, anyway."

"Well, okay, but by the time I saw it, Larry was dead.  I'm afraid that between my reaction to that and my other pressing business, I just laid the circular aside.  Larry's questions were moot by then anyway.  But it sounds like you got your answer."

Remembering how foolish he had felt asking Jody Bachman what an LBO was.  Hardy hesitated a moment but then went ahead.  The way to stay ignorant was not ask questions.  He admitted that he didn't really know what an offering circular was.

"It's pretty much what it says — it's a brochure outlining a stock offering.  In this case, YBMG was reorganizing to change their not-for-profit status.  I guess Larry had some questions, so he came to me, then when I wasn't here he went to the horse's mouth."

"He wrote the word
'no'
under their phone number."

"He probably decided he wasn't going to invest.  It doesn't look like it was much of a deal, anyway."

So that was that.

Hardy, being thorough now, asked if Ms. Bellows would send him a copy of the circular so that he could look it over.  She said she would messenger it over that afternoon.

*     *     *     *     *

She was dressed in her reds.  Her hair was all over the place.  The guards let her in and she stood, arms crossed, leaning back against the closed door.  She had asked Hardy to bring her a pack of cigarettes, and he shook out one and gave it to her.  San Francisco County Jail was officially a smoke-free environment.  This created a cottage industry among the prisoners who smuggled in cigarettes and sold them the way they sold cocaine, marijuana, and heroin.  Hardy just couldn't believe they'd bust Jennifer, convicted of murder and up for the death penalty, for having a smoke in the attorney's conference room.

Her eyes squinted against the smoke, drilled into him.  "Now what?" she said.

"Now I think we talk about how Larry beat you."

She squinted some more, seemed to shrink into herself.  "And that's why I killed him?"

Hardy nodded.  "That's our best shot.  It always was.  He took a step toward her but she stared him back.  "How are you holding up?" he asked gently.

She laughed briefly, more like a bark, then coughed, choking on the smoke from her cigarette.  The small room was filling with smoke.  "I'm real good," she said.  "Real good.  I love being here."  Tears filled her eyes, overflowed onto her face.  She left them there.

Hardy again tried to move forward, but she held out her hand.  "You stay
away
."  She turned a shoulder into the door and stood there, shaking, her body heaving, trying to control the sobs.  The cigarette fell to the ground at her feet.  "This isn't me…"  After all the other scenes,
this
was not an act.  She was talking to herself.  "I can't have got to here."

Hardy didn't know what to say.  Or do.  He had some of the same reaction — that this wasn't real, they couldn't have gotten to here.  Yet here they were.

One of the women guards looked in through the window, leaning over slightly with no expression at all.  The two people in the room, one crying and one standing, might as well have been part of the furniture.  The guard ignored the cigarette smoke.

There was no point in pushing.  Hardy took one of the chairs, pulled it around backward and straddled it.  He crossed his arms over the back of the chair and waited.

Eventually she had to sit down.  She turned her chair to the side, resting an arm across the table.  "I don't know why he needed to do that."

"Who?"

"Larry."  She nodded.  "I always tried to be a good wife, a good mother.  But I know who I am.  I guess Larry knew it too, maybe better than I did.  He was trying to protect me from myself, I think, keep me from making mistakes… And he wasn't mean like Ned was.  Even when he was mad he wasn't mean about it — it was more like it was his job to do."

"To keep you in line?"

"It wasn't every day, you know.  Most days, sometimes for a couple of weeks, nothing would happen.  But then it would just get to me — this, this feeling that if I didn't do
something
, something for myself, I'd go crazy.  A couple of times I think I did go crazy.  Threw things, tore up the house.  The anger just took over.  Do you know what I'm talking about at all?  I realize it sounds pretty strange."

"But you couldn't leave him?"

She hit her fist on the table.  "I didn't even want to leave him.  I loved Larry and… oh, God, I loved Matt.  It wasn't the way it was with Ned.  Not at all.  I really hoped we would work it out, someday."

This was, Hardy thought, the straightest — and saddest — talk he'd ever gotten out of her, but if it was going to do them any good he had to get more.  "I'm sorry to ask this, Jennifer, but what about Ken Lightner?"

It was as though she expected it, nodding to herself.  "I talked to him.  He told me about your lying to him about me saying we'd slept together.  But I'm not going to pretend I don't feel something strong for Ken.  I do."  She stared straight ahead for a long moment.  "But no," she said at last, "I wasn't going to leave Larry and Matt for him.  We talked about it.  It was okay.  I wanted to, at first especially.  But that was just more of the same behavior — Ken said I should break the cycle, don't do the wrong thing to begin with.  That way I wouldn't feel like I deserved to be punished."

"What about him?  How do you think he feels about you?"

She shrugged.  "He thinks I'm attractive.  He told me that, so I wouldn't think he was rejecting me."  Her hands were crossed in her lap, her head down, her voice almost inaudible.  "Men find me attractive, but once they get to know me, they don't like me so much."

"He's sticking with you all through this," Hardy said.  "That counts."

"I guess."

Hardy took a breath — this was the moment.  "If we can talk about this, talk about Ken, lay to rest the talk about your having an affair, say exactly what you've just said to me, how you just snapped and did some crazy things — I think we might have a chance."

She just looked at him.

He spoke quietly.  "We can get another shrink — or even Ken if you want — to argue for leniency based on the stress you were under."

Now shaking her head.

"What?"

"No," she said.  "I told Ken.  No."

Hardy stopped.  What did she mean, no?

"That's again saying I killed them, isn't it?  I'd be saying I just snapped one morning and killed them."  Her body had straightened, her head was up now, eyes getting life back into them.  "As soon as I say that, then there really is no hope."

Was this
déjà vu? 
Or
déjà déjà vu?
 Hardy had been through this a million times.  If she didn’t have something new to say, the jury was going to vote the death sentence.  Didn't she see that?

"I'm
not
going to tell anybody, ever, that I killed Larry!"

Hardy met her eyes, defiant and hard.  He noticed she didn't include Matt, and before hadn't named him.  "
Them
," she said.  She could say Larry, but not Matt.  She might let people — Ned or Larry — control her up to a point, but when she moved out from that control it was on her own.

It occurred to him too that she had changed over the past year — maybe she'd decided not only that she wasn't going to take it anymore with Larry but with any other men as well.  She'd just gotten assertive, cured of the submissive streak that had allowed her to accept being beaten.

If she were getting better Hardy was glad for her.  Still, he thought, strategically it couldn't have come at a worse time.

What was he going to argue in front of the jury?  What could he say that might influence them at least to spare her life?

*     *     *     *     *

Since he was in the building anyway he thought he would drop by Dean Powell's office on the third floor, see if he was putting in his time at his desk while he campaigned.

He was.  Sitting alone, reading what looked to be a police report, Powell started at Hardy's knock.  After the surprise, the genial candidate appeared.  "Hardy!  Come on in, take a load off."  Half out of his chair, hand extended, he could afford to be gracious.  After all, he had won.  "How's Freeman?  Not taking it too hard, I trust.  I ought to give him a call, congratulate him on a good fight."

Hardy closed the door behind him.  He leaned back against it, not moving toward the seat in front of the desk.  "Dean," he began, "I want to be straight with you a minute.  Off the record, is that all right?"

The smile remained, but Powell's expression went a little sideways.  He sat back down.  "Sure, Mr. Hardy."

"Dismas is okay if Dean is."

The smile flickered back.  Hardy hadn't had much luck reading Powell.  He couldn't really blame himself.  Powell was in an unusual predicament — on the one hand he wanted votes so badly that it was almost painful to watch.  On the other, the two men's relationship was adversarial.  It must be awkward, Hardy thought, to feel like your adversary might wind up voting for you, to
want
your adversary to vote for you, even to like you.

"Dean's fine," Powell said.  "I assume you're here about Jennifer Witt."

Hardy nodded.  "This is off the record," he repeated.  "I don't want this to be construed as a pre-sentencing conference or anything formal, and I'd prefer if what we say here doesn't leave this office."

"You have my word."

Hardy would rather have heard "sure" or "okay" or anything but "you have my word," which he thought clanged with insincerity if not downright duplicity.  Still, he was here and determined to press ahead.

"I wanted to talk about the death penalty."

Powell folded his hands in front of him on the desk.  "All right," he said mildly.  "Talk."

"I don't think it's just."

Powell waited.

"You and I both know that there are people out in the system with sheets a mile long that make Jennifer look like a den mother, and these guys are getting ten years for armed robbery with priors and serving six."

"That's true.  It's one of the reasons I'm running for AG.  That's got to stop.  We need more jail space.  We need tougher sentencing."

Hardy didn't need the campaign speech.  "Dean, my point is that going capital on Jennifer Witt is going overboard."

Powell looked up at him.  "A woman who's killed not one, but
two
husbands" — he raised a palm to stop Hardy's argument — "we don’t' have to be legalistic, Dismas.  David Freeman won that one in court, sure, but since we're off the record, we know the truth about that.  Let's not kid ourselves.  This woman has twice plotted and killed in cold blood for money, and in this second case, also managed to kill her own son.  If that isn't a death penalty case I don't know what is."

Hardy braced his foot back against the door.  "Have you talked to her?  One on one?"

"Why would I want to do that?"

"Maybe to get a handle on the fact that she's a human being."

Powell sat back.  "Let me ask you one — have you tried to visualize the crime?  Can you imagine the kind of person who takes out a gun and shoots her husband at point-blank range and then turns and" — Powell exploded in righteous anger — "and blows away her own
child?
  Can you
imagine
that?"

"She didn't do that, it wasn't like that—"

Powell slammed his desk, coming halfway up onto his feet.  "Bullshit!  That's just what it was like.  The jury says that's what she did.  I
proved
it.  Beyond a damned reasonable doubt."  Gathering his control, he sat himself down, lowered his voice.  "If you want to call such a person a human being, you're welcome to, but don’t expect any tears from me.  Or any mercy, either."

There was a knock on the door and Hardy stepped aside, pulling it open.  It was Art Drysdale, Hardy's old mentor, the ex-officio administrative boss of the office.  "Everything all right in here?  How you doin', Dismas?"

"We're fine, Art," Powell said evenly.  "Everything's fine.  Just a little disagreement among professionals."

Drysdale looked from one man to the other, raised a hand and closed the door again.

"You really think she did it, don’t you?  You know her husband — Larry — was beating her?"

"So what?  Nobody's talking battered wife here.  Freeman never did."

"We should have.  I should have.  Jennifer wouldn't allow it but she was wrong."  He almost said dead wrong.  "She thought it would prejudice the jury, make them think she was suing it as an excuse."  Sitting down, he gave Powell as much as he could of the short version.  "I'd just like you to consider if it was self-defense."