The Oath (12 page)

“Fish food.” Pico was clearly done with Hardy’s input on the subject. “Can we talk about something else? How’d it go with Eric?”

Hardy’s brow clouded, his tone grew serious. “I’ve got one for you. How well do you know him?”

“Pretty well. He’s been our family doc for years. We used to be closer—socially, I mean—before he and Ann broke up. Why?”

“Do you think he could kill anybody?”

Pico snorted. “No way.” A pause. “You want to hear a story, what he’s like?”

“More than anything if it makes him look good.”

“Okay, you remember when Danny first started having his problems?”

“Sure.” Pico’s eldest was seventeen now, but ten years before, he’d been diagnosed with leukemia. Hardy remembered some of the high drama surrounding the diagnosis and treatment, which had resulted in bone marrow transplants and, ultimately, remission. “Was that Kensing?”

“Yeah. But what maybe you don’t know is that he made the tentative diagnosis long before some board would have approved the treatment he ordered. They said it was way too expensive. They wanted to wait, have him take more tests, like that. So what did Eric do?”

“Tell me.”

“He didn’t think we could wait. If we waited, Danny might die. So he lied.”

“To who?”

“The HMO. When’s the last time you heard about a doctor risking his paycheck to save a patient? Well, Eric did. He made Danny’s records appear that the leukemia was more advanced than it was. If he was wrong and it cost his HMO big bucks for nothing, sorry. But if he was right, Danny lives.” Pico checked his voice back a notch. “Anyway, so that’s who Eric is, Diz. Check it out. He does this kind of stuff all the time. Christ, he makes
house calls.
He walks my sharks. You ask my opinion, the guy’s at the very least a saint, if not a certified hero.”

But when Hardy hung up, a thought nagged at him. Pico’s story had a downside. Kensing might be a saint and a hero, but a good cross-examiner could make the point that he had also proven himself capable of a sustained and elaborate fraud. He falsified medical records, possibly cheating his own employer out of maybe thousands of dollars. And if he did it once with Danny Morales, the odds were good that he’d done it with many other patients. And that at least some of those times, the odds were good that he’d been wrong.

David Freeman’s enormous office was panelled in a burnished and ancient dark wood. Burgundy drapes framed the two windows, in the center of which presided the lion’s claw–footed, leather-topped desk, most of its forty-eight square feet of surface cluttered with papers, files, ashtrays, in-and out-boxes, paperweights, celebrity photos, a couple of telephones. The fully stocked wet bar also featured a temperature-controlled wine cellar, Anchor Steam beer on tap, two cigar humidors, and an espresso machine. A couple of seating areas gave clients—and opposing attorneys—a choice between a formal or informal setting. On the floor, Persian rugs. On the various pedestals and tables, knickknacks from half a century of rich and grateful clients. A Bufano sculpture of St. Francis of Assisi blessed the room from one corner. A selection of original John Lennon erotic lithographs added a counternote. In a Byzantine-style glass case, a selection of alleged murder weapons (“alleged” because their respective owners all got acquitted) testified eloquently and mutely to Freeman’s skill in the courtroom. The fact that David could acquire them from prosecutors and police after he’d won the case was further testament to his popularity.

Hardy crossed a leg over a knee and sipped from the demitasse of espresso, then put it back on the arm of the sofa. His landlord had brewed himself a cup, as well, and brought it over to his desk, where he blew on it once and, engrossed in some paperwork, drank it off in a gulp, replacing it carefully in the exact center of its little porcelain saucer. For another full minute or more, Freeman didn’t look up, but turned the pages in front of him, occasionally making a note, occasionally muttering a phrase or two to himself, arguing or agreeing with what he was reading.

As he watched him work, Hardy couldn’t help but be struck again with the man’s almost childish energy and enthusiasm. Freeman was seventy-six years old. He’d been practicing law for fifty years and though he’d seen it all, there was still precious little about it that didn’t energize him. He came into his office every day of the week by about seven o’clock and when he didn’t go to court, which he did as often as possible, he stayed at his desk until late dinnertime, then often returned for a nightcap or two while he whipped out a quick twenty pages of memos or correspondence.

It seemed to Hardy that the old man had shrunk three or four inches in the eight years they’d been associated, and put on fifteen pounds. He could almost braid his thin, long, white hair. If he let them grow, he could probably do the same with his eyebrows. A downright slovenly dresser—“juries don’t trust good clothes”—he favored brown suits, many of them picked up in thrift stores, whether or not they fit perfectly. He never had them pressed. He smoked and/or chewed cigars constantly, and drank at least a bottle of wine, himself, every day at the office, and probably most of another for lunch and then again at dinner. He never exercised. The skin of his hands and face was mottled with liver spots. Today, he had bloodstains around his collar from where he’d cut himself shaving. Looking at him, Hardy thought he was the happiest, and possibly the healthiest, person on the planet.

And he didn’t miss a trick. “You feeling all right, Diz? Getting enough sleep?”

Hardy thought he’d been looking right at him, but he hadn’t noticed him look up. There was no point in getting into it, the mistake with his alarm clock, the whole question of children in one’s life. If Hardy started whining, Freeman would only say, “You made that bed. Get over it.” So Hardy left it at, “Postlunch slump is all. Plus, I got up early.”

“I hope it was billable,” Freeman said. He pointed across to his bar area. “You want another cup, help yourself. Meanwhile, speaking of billable, I’m at your service, but talk fast. I’m due in federal court in forty minutes. The appeal on Latham, God bless his wealthy murdering heart. So what got you up?”

Hardy gave him an abridged version of his meeting with Dr. Kensing, and the old man clucked disapprovingly. “You talked to a new client for more than an hour, even
de facto
took his case, a possible
murder
suspect, and the subject of your fees never came up?”

In the world of criminal law, you collected your fees up front. Hardy had experimented a time or two with being less than rigorous on that score and had discovered that the conventional wisdom turned out to be true. If you were successful and got your clients off, they didn’t need a lawyer anymore, and why should they pay you? On the other hand, if you failed and they went to jail, why should they pay you for that, either? So you usually wanted to casually mention the word “retainer” within about six sensitive minutes after saying hello.

Freeman the kind mentor was merely reminding him. “This is why, my son, I’m afraid you’re going to die impoverished and there is really no excuse for a good lawyer to die poor.”

“Yes, sir. I believe you’ve mentioned something like that before. Anyway, I emphasized to Glitsky that he’s a witness, not a suspect.”

“Ah.” Freeman nodded genially. “The good lieutenant wants to get to know him a little better, is that it?” The old man pulled himself up straight behind the desk and summoned his courtroom bellow. “Are you out of your mind?” He got his voice back under control. “A witness, not a suspect? He’s a prime suspect! And I’ll tell you something else. Kensing sure as hell thinks he is. Why do you think he wanted to get a lawyer onboard? In fact, the more I think about it, the more I like him.”

“You’ve never met him.”

“So what? You’ve only met him once. Are you trying to tell me that you know he’s not guilty of murder?”

“He injected Markham with potassium?”

“Or ran him over. Maybe both.”

“David—”

“Why not? The dead guy was screwing his wife, which is the oldest motive in the world.”

“So after waiting two years, he killed him?”

His worldview intact, Freeman sat back, serene as Buddha. “Happens every day. Seriously, Diz. What about this doesn’t work for you? It looks pretty good to me. Solid enough, anyway, for an indictment, easily for an arrest. You know how that works.”

Seeing it now through Freeman’s eyes, he was forced to concede that his client in fact did have motive, means, and opportunity to have killed Tim Markham. In his day, Hardy had won many grand jury indictments with any two of them, occasionally with only one.

And now he’d brokered this stupid little meeting with the head of homicide in a few hours. Kensing might show up here in the office and if more evidence had come to light, Glitsky might serve him with a grand jury subpoena, or even arrest him on the spot.

And all Hardy had done for Kensing to date had been to send him off to work with some low-watt advice and a little kneecap humor. He realized now that the familiar settings of the aquarium and the Shamrock and the two men’s mutual friendship with Pico Morales had gotten him off on the wrong foot here, temporarily blinding him to the realities Kensing faced. What had he been thinking?

Suddenly he was on his feet. “Excuse me, David,” he said. “I’ve got to get out of here.”

“I have this incredible sense of de´ja` vu,” Glitsky said.

“Didn’t we already do this?”

“That was this morning,” Hardy replied. “New opportunities abound if we but have the courage to face them.”

The lieutenant leveled his eyes at his friend across his desk, then zipped open the side pocket of his all-weather jacket, pulled out a few disks of some kind of white stuff, broke off a piece, and popped it into his mouth. “Want some of this rice cake? It’s awful.” He looked at it for a long moment before he pitched it into the wastebasket.

“What happened to the peanuts?” Hardy asked. For years, one of Glitsky’s desk drawers was the homicide detail’s peanut receptacle and the lieutenant would often carry a few handfuls around with him. “I could eat a few peanuts.”

“Too much cholesterol, or fat, or one of those. I forget which.”

“So on top of the heart stuff, you got CRS, too?”

Glitsky sat back, folded his arms, and stared. “I’m not going to ask.”

“Okay, fine. If you don’t know, you don’t know. And if you guessed wrong, you’d just say something negative anyway. But it’s never too late to change, you know. Accentuate the positive.”

“Latch on to the affirmative.” Glitsky’s voice was the essence of dry. “I’ve got another one for you. Let’s call the whole thing off.”

Hardy’s brow clouded. “Different song. And notice, a negative theme again. But this time, as it turns out, precisely what I had in mind.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, I regret to inform you that my client will not be available for our interview this evening after all. This case is just too hot for me to let him talk. However, if you’d like to give me inquiries in writing, I’d be happy to try and get you any information you require.”

Glitsky chortled. “And if you’d like to kiss my toes, perhaps I shall become a ballerina. It’s been my dream.”

The two men looked benignly at each other. Glitsky finally broke the impasse. “All right,” he said. “What’s CRS?”

Hardy paused for dramatic effect. “Can’t…remember…shit.” He grinned. “One sad day, you won’t ask.”

G
litsky had made it clear that the respective performances of Bracco and Fisk yesterday during the interview of Anita Tong left something to be desired, so much so that he’d forbidden them to talk directly to any of the other witnesses Tong had mentioned. Specifically, they were not to approach Eric Kensing or anyone at Parnassus headquarters. If they developed new leads for themselves and found anyone else on their own, they could use their judgment. Provided they immediately reported back to homicide—daily—with any results.

The lieutenant had even suggested that, since it was their area of expertise, maybe it would be an effective use of their time to visit some body shops and car washes, follow up on patrol sightings of suspicious vehicles in the projects and neighborhoods. Fisk accepted this assignment with relative good humor, tinged possibly with acceptance and even relief, but after a couple of hours of it, driving around in a continuous steady rain, Bracco lost his patience.

“Goddamnit, this isn’t a hit and run anymore, Harlen! Glitsky told us to build a case, and we’re probably gonna break some eggs making any kind of decent omelette out of it. But I’m damned if I’m driving around anymore looking for a fucking car all this miserable day. That’s not what killed him anyway.”

They had come up from the Mission and now were stopped at a red light on Van Ness near city hall. Fisk, huddled down in the passenger seat with his arms crossed against the chill, was shaking his head. “Glitsky said look for the car. Don’t mess with Kensing.”

“Okay, but how about his wife? She’s fucking Markham, you know she’s in this somehow.”

This made Fisk uncomfortable. “I don’t know. That’s pretty close to Kensing, don’t you think? Besides, where is she?”

“Up on Anza, behind USF. I’ve got her address.”

“How’d you find that?”

“I called information and asked.” He grinned over at his partner. “Believe it or not, it works. She lives like four blocks from the Kaiser on Masonic. I played a hunch and called there. Sure enough. You ever notice how all doctors’ wives are nurses? I say we go talk to her.”

Fisk still didn’t like it, but after a beat he brightened. “You know the other night you dropped me at Tadich’s? I mentioned the case to my aunt Kathy, and she said the whole Parnassus mess had been really hard on Nancy Ross. She felt so sorry for her.”

“Nancy Ross?”

“Malachi’s wife.”

“I don’t know Malachi Ross,” Bracco admitted.

Fisk allowed a small smile. “Parnassus,” he said. “With Markham gone, he runs it now. You didn’t read ‘CityTalk’ today? It was pretty interesting.”

“Are you turning into a cop on me, Harlen? So your aunt knows his wife?”

“Pretty well, I think. She knows everybody.”

“It’s something.” Bracco pointed. “And even as we speak, city hall looms on the right.” Abruptly making up his mind, he pulled directly over to the curb. “Let’s go say hi.”

Kathy West showed no sign of sharing any of her nephew’s genes. Maybe, Bracco thought, she was the wife of the blood relation to Harlen. In her mid-fifties, with a no-nonense, stop-and-start demeanor and frail bone structure, her little bob of gray-peppered hair, she reminded Darrell Bracco of nothing so much as a sparrow. A friendly, really intelligent sparrow.

The office of the city supervisor on the second floor was small—tiny—but pleasant. There was an antique desk, built-in bookshelves, a row of windows along the west-facing wall. When her nephew and his partner showed up unexpectedly, they didn’t appear to be interrupting anything. She greeted them both warmly, then sent her administrative aide, a well-dressed obsequious young man named Peter, for some coffee.

After a few minutes of small talk and a quick cook’s tour of her workspace—three desks in an outer cubicle, a cramped library and file room—when the coffee arrived, she closed the door to her office behind them and they all sat. “So,” she began, “I’m assuming you’re here to talk about Parnassus. Wasn’t that ‘CityTalk’ column devastating? I don’t see how Malachi Ross will be able to face his employees today, to say nothing of his board. Well…” She stopped, expectant.

Bracco stepped into the breach. “Harlen said you knew Mrs. Ross. I wonder if you could tell us a little about her before we go and interview her.”

“Why would you want to do that? Surely she isn’t any kind of a suspect?”

Fisk replied frankly, “We’re on what you might call a short leash with Lieutenant Glitsky. This is our first real case and I think he wants us to work in from way outside. Not spook any important witnesses with naive questions.”

“Parnassus may be part of the motive, if there is one.” Bracco’s tone was confident, as though he’d done this kind of thing a hundred times before.

“But Nancy Ross?” West asked. “Was she even there when Markham died? She would have had to be at the hospital, wouldn’t she?”

“She’s not a suspect,” Fisk reiterated. “We’re just interested in the personal side of Parnassus, if you will. The players. If there might be anything there.”

“Well…” She put her cup down. “I really don’t know Malachi Ross at all, although of course we’ve met several times. Nancy, on the other hand, I know fairly well. She is a lovely person. Very active, socially, I mean. She also volunteers with the Opera Board, the Kidney Foundation, several other charities, many of a medical nature.” West narrowed her eyes slightly. “I may as well tell you that politically, as well, she’s been a friend. So I’m afraid I’m not going to be a very good source of dirt.”

“We’re not looking for dirt,” Bracco assured her. Though the idea that there might be some dirt was appealing, this wasn’t the venue to pursue it. “Was she a nurse, by the way?”

West shook her head no. “I don’t believe Nancy has ever worked for a living. I mean, at a real job. She’s never needed to. She comes from money.”

“But even when her husband was young? To help out?” Bracco asked.

West laughed. “When her husband was young, Inspector, Nancy was a baby. She’s Dr. Ross’s second wife. I’d be surprised if she’s thirty-five.” A cloud crossed her brow. “Her parents weren’t altogether taken with the marriage. I remember hearing that the money from that source dried up. They didn’t like the idea of Nancy being a trophy wife for an older man, and they cut her off entirely. I mean her money. Not that it mattered, as it turns out. Malachi does very well”—she shook her head in commiseration—“as the entire city now knows.”

Harlen finally thought of a question. “Does she do anything with her husband? For Parnassus?”

The supervisor shook her head. “I don’t really think so, not specifically with the company. But she entertains all the time, and I suppose to some degree that’s part of his business.”

“All the time?” Bracco asked.

A nod. “I don’t know how she does it with the small children—she’s got her twin girls, I think they’re about six—but I suppose with the nannies…” She collected her thoughts a moment. “But back to your question, I’d guess she throws a really lavish party once a month, with smaller affairs—charity do’s—two or three times a week.”

Bracco wasn’t familiar with the lifestyle, and didn’t seem to understand it. “This would be most weeks?”

“I’d say so. When she’s in town.”

“As opposed to where?”

“Well…” She smiled and opened her palms in front of her. “Wherever she wants to go, I’d suppose. They have a second place—really stunning, I’ve been there, seven or eight thousand square feet—right on the lake at Tahoe. And I know they—or she and the girls—they Christmas at Aspen or Park City. They have their own plane, I believe.”

Darrel Bracco jogged through the rain with his partner, got to his car and into his seat. When Harlen was buckling up beside him, he caught his eye. “Wow.”

“Real money,” Fisk agreed. “Real live money.”

“Their own airplane? I’d like my own airplane.”

“How could you pay for the gas to go anywhere, though?”

“Yeah, there’s that.” Bracco pulled out into the traffic. The rain continued as though it would never end, drifting in sheets before them. It was nearly noon, and still dark as dusk, and after a bit, Bracco’s expression closed down to match it. “But we knew they were rich to begin with, didn’t we? I don’t see what else it gets us.”

Fisk considered that. “It got us a better cup of coffee than Ed’s body shop.”

“At least that.” The message, especially welcome coming from Fisk, was a good one. They were finally working a righteous homicide, not a variant of hit and run. And the truth was that it wasn’t the same at all. Now, without any real guidance, the job was to follow where their intelligence and instincts led them. They were gathering random information, that was all. And by definition much of it would be irrelevant. But some of it might be important—you just didn’t know until you knew.

Without any discussion, Bracco turned west, toward Kaiser and Ann Kensing’s house. Fisk, concentrating, sat in a deep silence for a couple of blocks. Then, “Darrel.”

“Yeah?”

“What does a plane cost, you think?”

“I think it’s one of those things where if you’ve got to ask, you can’t afford it.”

But his partner was a ball of surprises today. Something had started his engine over this investigation, and now he was obviously pursuing a train of thought. “No, not that. I mean just the upkeep alone—the hangar, the gas, monthly payments, insurance?”

“I don’t know. I suppose it would depend on where you keep it, the size of the plane, all that. Why?”

Fisk shrugged. “I’m thinking about a million two. How far it goes.”

This wasn’t a hard one for Darrel. “If I had a million two, I’d be retired on the beach in Costa Rica. Where’d that figure come from?”

“That’s what Ross makes a year.” Bracco shot a glance of utter skepticism across the seat, and Fisk retorted, “Hey, that was the number in the paper—‘CityTalk.’ It’s got to be true. But my point isn’t how much money it is. It’s whether it’s enough.”

This made Bracco laugh. “It’s enough, trust me.”

“Is it? Two mansions, a past marriage, which means alimony and probably child support. A new, young, party-giving society wife, kids in private schools, servants, airplanes, vacations.”

“A million two, though.” For Darrel Bracco, son of a cop, a million dollars might as well be a trillion. They were both unfathomably large sums of money, a lifetime’s worth of money.

Clearly, though, not so for Fisk. “You ever read a book called
Bonfire of the Vanities
?”

“Was that a book? I think I saw the movie.”

“Yeah, well, the movie sucked, but it was a book first. Anyway, a cool thing in the book was this guy running down the list of his expenses, showing how impossible it was to get along on only a million dollars a year. And this was like ten years ago.”

“He should have called me,” Bracco said. “I could have helped him out.”

“The point,” Fisk pressed on, “is that maybe we just did learn something we can use from Aunt Kathy. Instead of concentrating on how rich Ross is, it might be smarter to think how poor he is. I mean, face it, if your expenses are greater than your income, you’re poor, right? No matter what you make.”

They stopped at Kaiser first and discovered that Mrs. Kensing had called in sick.

The rain that had been falling steadily since last night had found a new life. Monsoonlike, driven nearly horizontal by strong winds off the ocean, the drops pelted both inspectors as they stood on her front stoop. She answered the door wearing heavy gray socks, designer jeans, and a red, cowl-neck pullover. Bracco’s immediate impression was that she hadn’t slept in a couple of days.

Her shoulder-length blond hair was a mess. Without makeup of any kind, she appeared drawn and gaunt. Still, there was no hiding her attractiveness. Her eyes, especially, were deep-set, wide and compelling, almost electric blue. He’d never seen eyes quite like them.

Even after they’d introduced themselves, badges out, Mrs. Kensing simply stared at them until Bracco finally asked if they could come in. Nodding, she took a step back, opening the door as she withdrew. “I’m sorry,” she said ambiguously, then waited another long moment before she brought the door closed behind them all.

The light was dim in the vestibule. They stood dripping on the woven cloth rug in the tiny area. “Maybe we should…” she said distractedly, and not finishing the sentence, led the way a few steps down a short hall, then to the right into the kitchen.

Overflowing onto the floor, a huge load of laundry lay piled on the table. Skirting that, she pulled out a stool. The counter still held dirty dishes from the morning—a milk and a juice carton, two boxes of cereal, some brown pear and banana slices on a cracked saucer. Finally she focused on them where they stood in the small humid room.

“All right. What?” The startling eyes flicked back and forth between the inspectors.

Bracco pulled out his tape recorder and put it on the counter in front of her. He cleared his throat and recited his name and the date, his badge number, the usual. He hadn’t rehearsed what he was going to say, hadn’t really considered what the woman’s state of mind might be before she’d opened the door. But now he had to begin with something soon or, he sensed, she’d throw them both out. “Mrs. Kensing, Tim Markham and you were lovers, weren’t you?”

She cleared her throat. “We used to be, but he broke it off. Twice.”

“Why?”

“Because he was guilty about his family. Especially he didn’t want to hurt his kids. But he didn’t love his wife anymore. So he kept coming back to me.”

“But he left you again, too? Isn’t that right?” Bracco asked.

“Temporarily. He would have come back again.”

“So why did he leave?”

“Because he had to try again with them. One more time, he said.”

Fisk asked, “And when was that?”

“Last week. Late last week.”

“And were you okay with that?” Bracco asked. “With his decision?”

“How could I be? I knew…” Her eyes were hard. “I knew he’d come back to me eventually, just like he always did. He loved me. I didn’t see why he had to put everyone through it again. All the back and forth. I told him he should just separate. Make it clean.”