The Second Chair (7 page)

“I’ve heard,” she said, “but I’m not planning to take him to trial.”

“No? How’s that going to happen?”

“I think you’ll be happy,” Amy said. “My idea is to keep him in the juvie system.”

“How old is he, did you say?”

“Seventeen.”

Hardy sat back. “Last I heard, seventeen-year-olds got filed adult around here. Mr. Jackman’s been a little rigid on the topic.” Jackman had very publicly adopted a very tough stance on juvenile crime. A seventeen-year-old who’d killed two people did not elicit much sympathy from the new prosecutors in the DA’s office. “You’re telling me Boscacci has already filed him juvie?”

“Yes, sir.” She paused. “After I told him Andrew would admit.”

But Hardy’s expression grew perplexed. “He’s going to admit? How do you know he’s going to do that? You said you hadn’t talked to him yet.”

“I talked to his stepfather.”

“Okay, all well and good, but the one who pays the bills isn’t necessarily the client.” Hardy scratched behind his ear, interrupted Wu as she started to reply. “No, wait,” he said. “And what if in fact he didn’t actually do it?”

Wu came forward with some enthusiasm, obviously feeling that this question put her on firmer ground. “He did, though,” she said. “Look, we know homicide took two months building the case. They played it slow and steady. He did it, sir, and specials as an adult puts him in prison for the rest of his life. He’ll admit to avoid that.”

“But you just told me he says he’s innocent.”

Wu shook her head. “They don’t arrest innocent people anymore.”

“It’s happened to clients of mine.”

“Yes, sir. All two of them, I believe, right?”

“Actually, three.”

“Well, the exceptions that prove the rule. Three is more than an entire century’s allotment right there.”

Hardy wasn’t really amused, but he broke a small smile. “I hate to mention it, but they
were
last century’s cases. Now we’re working on the new one.”

“When Andrew sees the evidence against him, he’s going to get religion. You watch. I promise. Really, sir. This is a sweet deal for everybody.”

“I can’t believe Boscacci’s going along.”

“To avoid the trial? Why not? He gets two convictions out of this, so he wins. Wouldn’t you take the deal?”

Hardy thought if he were Boscacci he might, but depending on the evidence, he might not. Though there was always an incentive among administrators to clear docket time, a high-profile murder case often sought its own level and provided potentially positive intangibles, such as name recognition for the politically ambitious. And even if Wu’s strategy worked, it wouldn’t be without its drawbacks.

Wu sat back, cocked her head, spoke in a measured tone. “What I’m doing here, sir, is making sure that Andrew gets out of custody in eight years instead of never.”

Hardy, unsatisfied, glanced at his watch. “All right,” he said. Getting up out of his chair, he pulled some papers on his desk together. “I’m hoping you’re right in every respect. Meanwhile, I’ve got another client coming in, so may I be so crass as to inquire about your retainer? This is still criminal law . . .”

“And you get your money up front.”

“Words to live by. How much?”

“Well,” she said. “The plea won’t take too long to get processed. I figured it was worth about five grand.”

At the figure, Hardy stopped his paper gathering, looked up with another question on his face, worry in his eye. Even if everything went exactly according to Wu’s plan and she was uncommonly lucky—and Hardy thought neither of these was a lock—then she would certainly spend at least forty hours, and maybe as many as sixty, in the next week or so preparing Andrew, convincing him that it was in his favor to say that he was guilty of murder so that he could avoid being tried as an adult.

Hardy had been doing a lot of math in his head lately, and immediately sensed that five thousand dollars wasn’t close to Wu’s standard rate of $150 an hour. He punched at the adding machine in front of him. It was worse than he’d thought. “You’re only planning on putting in thirty-three hours on this?”

“I figured that was about what it was worth.” She fidgeted with her hands opening her purse.

Hardy shook his head. “So you were going to put in the extra time without billing it, which would not only be cheating you, but the client and the firm, and . . .”

She pulled the check from her purse, interrupted his rebuke. “So I told Mr. North I’d take twenty down. Thousand, that is.”

She put the check face up on the desk.

Hardy looked down at it, up at her. Nodded. “Okay, Wu,” he said, “you’re starting to get it.”

Into the phone, Hardy said, “I would have bet your office was a veritable fortress of solitude.”

“I would have, too, but I guess not,” Glitsky said. “I even thought of dusting for prints, except everybody who works in the Hall was here for the open house when I took office.”

“You don’t have any idea who it was?”

“I can’t imagine anybody who’d take the chance. I mean, I’m the deputy chief. They get caught, they’re toast. Who’d risk it?”

Hardy was standing behind the desk in his office. The shades were down, cutting some of the afternoon glare, but his eyes were twinkling, his color high. He’d had a martini and most of a bottle of Pinot Grigio at lunch at Sam’s, with a plate of sand dabs. He’d reeled in another client from the bottomless pool of troubled police persons. And now for an unexpected bonus, he was getting to console Glitsky on the terrible breach of security in his office, somebody moving his drawers around. The way it was going, Hardy thought there was some small chance he could talk Abe into paying him to put an private investigator on it.

But then Glitsky said, “Well, it was probably some stupid prank anyway.”

The opening was just too wide, and Hardy couldn’t resist stepping into it. “I don’t know, Abe. There are some bona fide crazies in your building. At least I might send a sample of the peanuts to the lab and throw the rest out.”

“You think?”

“Better safe than dead.”

“How could I get dead around this?”

“I don’t know. Was there any powder in the bottom of the drawer?”

Glitsky snorted. “Yeah, but they’re salted in the shell peanuts, so the trained inspector in me thinks the white powder is probably salt. And if it was anthrax, it’s too late already.”

“Did you taste it?”

“No. Just a minute. Yep. Salt.”

Hardy clucked. “Your tongue goes numb in five minutes, do me a favor and call nine one one. And I’d still send some of the goobers to the lab. You never know.”

“I’ll consider it.”

“You don’t sound sincere. You remember the song ‘Found a Peanut’? The guy in that song died if you recall. I’m serious.”

“That’s what worries me, that you’re serious.” Glitsky sighed. “Can we leave the peanuts, please? I didn’t call about the peanuts anyway.”

“All right. It’s your funeral. So what do you want?”

“I wondered what time you might be going home. I’ve got a five o’clock meeting with Batiste that just came up and Treya’s got to be home at the regular time because Rita’s . . . never mind. The point is if you’re staying a little late, maybe I could bum a ride with you.”

“Your driver ought to take you to and from work.”

“My driver works the day shift. I come in too early and go home too late. I think I’ve mentioned this to you before.”

“I probably didn’t pay attention. So what time?”

Glitsky said six-thirty or so and Hardy told him it was his lucky day. He had his own meeting after close of business with Amy Wu about this double homicide she was handling.

“That would be Andrew Bartlett,” Glitsky said. It wasn’t a question.

“Doesn’t it get boring when you already know everything?” Hardy asked. “But I bet you haven’t heard that Boscacci’s filed him juvie.”

“Sure he did. And next year I’m quarterback for the Forty-Niners.”

“I’ll expect great tickets. But it’s true. Boscacci, I mean.”

Silence. Then. “How did that happen?”

“Wu is having him cop a guilty plea in exchange for juvenile sentencing.”

“And Jackman agreed? Jackman who likes to say if you’re old enough to kill somebody, you’re an adult? That Jackman?”

“The very same. And I’ve heard him say the same thing. But Wu says it’s a done deal.”

“I’d make sure before I go real large telling anybody. Like the newspapers.”

“Well, that’s what Wu and I are going to be talking about, so I’ll let you know.”

4

T
he name Youth Guidance Center, or YGC, had an avuncular ring to it, as though the juvenile detention facility were some kind of a counseling haven for wayward children, a rest stop filled with soft stuffed chairs and couches, pastel colors, New Age music in the background. And in reality, in simpler times when the place was new, it had pretty much been like that. Kids who stole hubcaps, or smoked a joint, or played hooky from school, would wind up at the YGC and receive counseling, maybe a day or so of lockup to impress upon them the serious consequences of breaking the law.

Nowadays these relatively petty crimes never hit the radar of the police department. Juvenile felonies were commonly every bit as serious as crimes committed by adults, so in today’s San Francisco, the YGC’s primary function was, mostly, to lock up seriously dangerous criminals who happened to be under the age of eighteen. True, the center had a suicide-prevention watch. It also held a few dozen abandoned or abused children while they awaited suitable outplacement to foster homes. But in the main, “the cottages,” as the jail facility was called, housed murderers, rapists and a varied assortment of vandals, robbers, muggers and burglars. Most of the inmates were awaiting or in the middle of their respective trials or hearings, which occurred in courtrooms on the premises, just adjacent in the administrative wing.

Wu hated being late. This morning between Boscacci and Hardy, she had also talked to Hal North, told him about her success with Boscacci, and scheduled what she thought might be a relatively lengthy appointment with the North family before the detention hearing—they had a lot they had to go over. She particularly wanted to hear more about the results of Hal’s discussions on the admission issue with his wife and stepson, about which he’d been disconcertedly vague, telling her that he and Linda hadn’t had as much time as he would have liked to talk because of an event they had to attend at the yacht club. Wu shouldn’t worry, though, he told her. He’d have it all worked out with Andrew and Linda by the time they got to court.

This was Wu’s first formal court appearance at the YGC, and she had gotten lost on the way up, then caught in traffic. After the uphill half-jog from down the street where she’d managed to find a parking place, through the admin building and up the steep walk to the cottages, she fought to catch her breath for a minute just outside the gate in the razor-wire-topped Cyclone fence. A bailiff appeared in response to her ring and escorted her without a word into the building proper—a one-story structure that reminded her of a cross between a military barracks and an inner-city high school. Drab and institutional and depressing as hell, she thought.

The bailiff led her to a pocked wooden door in the hallway and opened it. Sitting in an old-fashioned school desk in the opposite corner of the tiny room, next to the one outside window, Andrew Bartlett lifted a hand about an inch in a halfhearted greeting.

“Here she is.” Hal stood to Wu’s right, leaning back against the wall, arms crossed and clearly unhappy. “At last.”

“Hal.” Linda shot a frustrated look at her husband, then turned and smiled at Wu. “It’s all right. You’re here.”

“I’m sorry. Terrrible traffic. I even gave myself an extra half hour,” she lied, then showed some more teeth, took a breath, turned to her client. “It’s good to see you again, Andrew. How are you holding up?”

The boy dropped his head, lifted it, shrugged. “ ’kay.”

Confident and prepared, Wu smiled at him. “Good,” she said. “Don’t worry. We’ll get you out of here today.”

Linda piped in. “You think we can do that?”

“Oh, I think so.”

“Really?” Hal asked.

“Probably,” she said. “The hearing today is about whether they keep Andrew here until he’s sentenced, and I don’t see why they’ll need to do that.”

“So what happens?” he asked. “What about bail?”

Wu shook her head. “No. I thought I’d explained that. Juveniles don’t get bail. The judge either lets Andrew go home with you and Linda, or he orders him kept here—detained.”

“Just like that?” Linda shot a hopeful glance at her son. “One way or the other.”

“Yes. And in this case, look what we’ve got. Both parents here showing support and concern. A minor with no previous record who poses no risk of flight—you’ll both watch out for him, right?” She turned to Hal. “Then there’s your standing in the community, sir. Beyond that, if the judge wanted more assurance, I’m assuming you’d be willing to pay for whatever private security, even a twenty-four-hour-a-day guard, that the court could want to be sure Andrew stayed out of trouble.”

“He wouldn’t need that,” Hal said.

“No, I don’t think so either. So I think . . .”

But Andrew finally spoke up, interrupting her. “What do you mean, ‘sentencing’? Don’t you mean ‘trial’?”

Wu’s startled glance went from her client to his stepfather, back over to Linda. “That’s one of the other issues we’re going to have to discuss. I thought you might already have . . .”

Hal cut her off. “I was waiting for you to get here . . .”

“To what?” Andrew asked.

“Just talk about the case.”

“What about it?”

“The evidence, your plea, like that.”

“What do you mean, his plea?” Linda, her voice suddenly very sharp, backed up a step so she could face both Hal and Wu together. “His plea is not guilty. It has to be not guilty, right?”

Wu drew a quick breath. “Well, as I said, there are a few legal issues . . .”

Three sharp raps sounded on the door to the room and it immediately opened to the bailiff. “Time,” he said. “Let’s go. Can’t keep the judge waiting.” Then, perhaps sensing the tension in the room, he asked, “Everything all right in here?”