Hard Evidence (23 page)

31

It had turned into this.

Owen Nash stood on a balcony twenty-three floors above Las Vegas, his skin still damp from his shower. A towel was tucked under his protruding stomach, a fresh cigar remained unlit in his mouth. He liked the desert, especially now at twilight. It was still hot and dry after the scorching day, but the water evaporating from his skin kept him cool.

He fixed his eyes beyond the city. The mountains on the horizon had turned a faint purple. From far below, street noises carried up to him softly. More immediately, he heard May turn the shower off in the bathroom. He leaned heavily, with both hands, on the railing.

Sucking reflectively on the cigar, he felt rather than heard the soft tread of her bare feet crossing the rug behind him. He sighed again, started to say something, but May hushed him. She opened her kimono and pressed herself against him, then she led him silently back into the room and pushed him onto the bed.

‘Lie down,’ she ordered. ‘You’re getting a back rub.’

She started kneading his shoulders. The muscles were knotted tightly, but May was in no hurry. She knew what she was doing. Gradually, the stiffness began to work itself out. He began breathing deeply, regularly. For a moment she thought he might have fallen asleep, but then he groaned quietly as she moved to a new knot.

Outside, the twilight had deepened. May stretched out on top of him, ran her hand up along his side. ‘Pretty tense, you know that?’

He nodded.

‘You want to talk about it?’

He didn’t answer immediately, just lay with his eyes closed, breathing heavily. ‘We’ve got dinner,’ he said. It was to be their first public appearance together. He thought it was important to her. May didn’t push. She lay quietly in the growing dark.

‘I’ll decide in a minute,’ he said.

Even in the dimness, May could make out the lines in his face. His high and broad forehead showed a lifetime of living. His thin lips were tight. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, his voice strangely flat, ‘I don’t know.’

‘What?’

‘I think things may be getting a little out of hand.’

May stiffened — she’d been trying to let herself believe that she’d never hear this kind of thing from him. ‘With us?’

He laughed, pulling her tight against him. ‘Shinn, please. Well, maybe it is us, but not the way you mean.’

‘You tell me.’

‘You know the bitch about life is you can’t do everything. You take one road and it means you can’t take another. And either way, you’re going to miss something.’

‘Are you afraid of missing something?’

He laughed dryly. Tm afraid of missing anything. I never felt I had to. I never made any commitment that way. It just wasn’t in my life. Now I’m thinking about it. It scares the shit out of me. I keep thinking you’re going to find out.‘

‘Find out what?’

‘What I am. What I’ve been.’

She pressed herself long against him. ‘Haven’t we been through that. What do you think I’ve been?’

‘I don’t care what you’ve been, Shinn.’

‘I don’t care what
you’ve
been, Nash. Are you worried about those other roads, what you’re going to miss?’

‘Not so much. It’s making the change.’

‘Nobody’s forcing you.’

‘You’re wrong, Shinn. You’re forcing me. But it’s okay, it’s what I want. It’s the only thing I want anymore.’

She tried to believe him.

*     *     *     *     *

Freeman chewed on a pencil, looking out the sliding glass doors to the little courtyard, enclosed on the other three sides by the bricks of the surrounding buildings. A pigeon pecked on the cobbles.

May was sitting next to him at the marble table in the conference room. There was a fresh spray of flowers in the center of the table. The room smelled faintly like a walk-in humidor. ‘Did you ever go out?’ he asked.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that night. You said it was supposed to be your first public appearance. I just wondered how it went.’

She seemed to gather inside herself, as she’d done before. Freeman wasn’t sure he’d call it a visible withdrawal, but it was somehow palpable. He would have to try and define it better, get her trained not to do it, whatever it was, in front of a jury. ‘No,’ she said finally. ‘No, we never met any of his friends.’

She raised her eyes, seeing how he took that. Perhaps emboldened, she added, ‘He… we never needed to, we were enough for each other.’

*     *     *     *     *

Hardy reached a hand out over his desk. ‘Those the phone things?’

Glitsky held what looked like a small booklet of yellow paper. He passed it across the desk. ‘I think some clerk got carried away. I just asked for June twentieth. I think they gave us the whole year.’

‘Well, how’s the twentieth look?’

‘Good. For us. Not so good for Shintaka.’

Hardy intended to merely glance at the printout — he had his binder open, ready to put it in. Given it was half a year, there weren’t all that many calls, maybe fifteen pages, each of them five inches long. He began flipping through quickly. ‘Look at this,’ he said.

Glitsky nodded. ‘I noticed. No calls to Japan.’

Hardy looked up. Glitsky, he knew, rarely missed a trick. ‘You’re no fun, you know that.’

If May did business in Japan, it made sense she would at least occasionally need to call there, especially if she were planning a trip. Even if she did most of her work by fax, Hardy thought he could reasonably expect one or two calls. ‘Well, it can’t hurt. You check any of these?’ Hardy was scanning the pages, turning them backward, now on March.

‘No. I checked the twentieth. I just happened to notice Japan. You want, I can assign a guy.’

‘No, I’ll…’ Suddenly Hardy’s eyes narrowed. He stopped flipping.

‘What?’ Glitsky asked.

‘Nothing.’ He closed the pages and put them on his desk. ‘I just remembered I’ve got to pick up some stuff for the Beck.’

‘You’re a good daddy.’

‘I know. I amaze myself.’ He tapped the pages, back to business. ‘I’ll go through this stuff. Thanks.’

Glitsky stood up. ‘Thank you. That is not my idea of a good time.’

Hardy kept it loose. ‘God, they say, is in the details.’

‘Wise men still seek Him. Want me to get the door?’

‘Please.’

*     *     *     *     *

He hoped he was wrong, but he didn’t think so.

Hardy wasn’t great at math, but he had a natural affinity for numbers, especially telephone numbers. He hadn’t called the number on the March listing recently, but as soon as he saw it, he knew that at one time he’d known it.

He grabbed the pages and looked back to the beginning. The number appeared in February, too, more frequently. Twice a week in January. Eighteen total calls.

Maybe the number had changed, but Hardy didn’t think so. He picked up the telephone on his desk and dialed the number. There were three rings.

‘This is 885-6024. Please leave your name and number and I’ll get back to you.’

Hardy’s mouth had gone dry. His left hand gripped the paperweight so tightly his knuckles were white. The paperweight!

He thought of Owen Nash’s jade ring, the distinctive filigree, the animal motif. Frannie’s early theory. For a second he couldn’t think of what to say. The tape hissed blankly in his ear. He forced himself to speak into the home answering-machine of Superior Court Judge Andrew B. Fowler.

‘Andy,’ Hardy said, ‘this is Dismas. We’ve got to talk. I’m going by your office now, but if I haven’t reached you by the time you get this, please call me immediately. It’s urgent, it’s extremely urgent.’

Part Three

32

Casually as he could muster, Hardy put the paperweight into his pocket and walked out past the other suites in the D.A.‘s office. Thinking ’not now,‘ he saw Jeff Elliot coming out of the elevator and turned to duck into the criminal investigations room just outside the D.A.’s door. He wasn’t quick enough, though. He heard his name called and stopped, caught, hands in his pockets.

For a reporter Jeff had a knack of seeming to be sensitive, even reasonable. Maybe, Hardy thought, it was the crutches, that and the grin. To say nothing of today’s puffiness, the indoor sunglasses. You wanted to help the guy.

‘Bad time?’

Hardy nodded. ‘A little.’

‘You go ahead then. I’ll talk to Ms Pullios.’

There was a perverse satisfaction in Elizabeth now being the attorney of record. Naturally she would be a valuable source. But Hardy felt that, at the very least, he ought to have some control over the flow of information to the
Chronicle
. This wasn’t in the office hierarchy and he didn’t want to give her a freebie on what she most craved — ink. ‘I’ve got a minute, Jeff, what can I do for you?’

‘Can we talk somewhere? I need to go off the record.’

They walked back into the D.A.‘s hallway and Hardy unlocked one of the waiting rooms, provided for the families of victims, witnesses, the odd conference. There was a yellow couch — the city favored green and yellow —and matching armchair. A picture of the Golden Gate Bridge in a special limited edition of three and a half million livened up the wall space.

Jeff lowered himself into the chair.

‘Where have you been lately? You don’t look too well.’

‘Just some new medication. Makes me puff up and get light sensitive. Prednisone.’

‘Steroids?’

Jeff smiled. ‘That’s what they use. It’s okay, I wasn’t going for the Olympics anyway.’

Hardy liked him, no getting around it. ‘Okay, so what’s off the record?’ He pointed a finger. ‘And it
is
off the record.’

Did Hardy remember last week, after the Municipal Court arraignment, standing in the hallway with Elliot and Glitsky, talking about the bail, the money connection?

‘Sure, of course, what about it? You find something?’

The reporter shook his head. ‘No, not yet, maybe. But you guys said, didn’t you, there were ways to subpoena the bail bondsman for his records.’

Hardy shook his head. ‘Not in this case. Only if we think the money for the bail came from criminal activity.’

‘Well, how would May Shinn get half a million dollars?’

‘What half a million? She only needed fifty thousand for a fee.’

Jeff Elliot shook his head. ‘I thought that at first, too. She still needs collateral on the loan.’

Hardy nodded. ‘Yeah, we’ve gone over that.’ He chewed it around again. ‘I don’t know, investments? Maybe she inherited it? We don’t have any sign of anything. Drugs. Like that.’

‘How about prostitution? That’s illegal, isn’t it?’

It was something to wonder about, but that, too, had already been discussed. ‘Maybe. Technically. But there’s no judge going to give us a warrant to seize records on that.’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe the bondsman accepted Owen Nash’s will.’

‘Even if she killed him? Could she collect on that?’

‘That,’ Hardy said, ‘is another legal battle. Fortunately it’s not mine. Whichever way it goes, even if she gets the whole two million, lawyers will wind up with most of it. What do you have that’s so off the record?’

Elliot leaned forward and took off his sunglasses. There was something clearly unfocused there, dark rings in sockets deepened by swelling. Hardy couldn’t conceal his reaction and interrupted Jeffs response. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

Jeff smiled and the bags seemed to lift a bit. ‘It looks worse than it is. Actually I’m feeling much better.’ He put on the glasses again. ‘The chipmunk cheeks go away after a while.’

‘You getting any sleep?’

Now the grin was wide. ‘Not enough.’ Then, slyly proud. ‘I’m seeing somebody. First time.’ He lifted his shoulders with exaggerated nonchalance. ‘Sleep’s not a big issue.’

‘You dog!’

‘Yes, well…’ Suddenly Jeff didn’t want to be talking about it, reducing it, bragging as though it were some casual victory. This wasn’t a conquest, it was Dorothy. ‘Anyway, about the bail, I don’t have any names yet, nothing I can print, but before I even move ahead at all, I want to protect my source.’

‘So how do you do that?’

‘I provide a plausible explanation of how I came to look at some records. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you this?’

Hardy passed over that. ‘Have you seen some records?’

‘No.’ Jeff leaned forward. Hardy thought if he took off his glasses he was lying. But he didn’t. ‘Really, no.’

‘Okay. And I’m the leak?’

‘Unnamed, of course. Off the record.’

Hardy found himself reminded of Freeman’s advice to him in the courtroom, of Pullios’s insistence that there were no rules. This was high-stakes poker, and if Jeff could provide Hardy — oops, the prosecution — with the source of May’s bail, it would only help his, their, case.

‘If anything comes out of this and I can’t explain how I got my information, my source loses her job, so I thought I’d cover that up front.’

‘But we’re not subpoenaing the records.’

‘I know, but that doesn’t matter. I just need an answer if the question comes up.’

‘I’m not giving you an answer to anything, Jeff. I’m just telling you a procedure, you got that? The way the D.A. would do it if certain criteria were met, which they have not been.’

‘I got it.’

‘Clearly?’

‘Clearly.’

Hardy picked up a tall pile of blue chips and dropped them into the pot. ‘Okay then.’

*     *     *     *     *

Hardy thought he might be getting paranoid, but he took the file home with him anyway. In it was everything they had to date, including the phone records on May Shinn. He stopped out by Arguello and Geary and spent forty-five minutes copying it. He couldn’t have said exactly why it seemed like such a good idea — Pullios might be taking it away from him, maybe he wanted to be able to check up on her in the privacy of his office.

Maybe he was trying to protect Andy Fowler.

No. There was a fine line between the backstabbing, gamesmanship and duplicity that seemed to be the norm and downright unethical conduct. He was going to find out about Andy Fowler’s relationship with May Shinn. Then he would deal with it. He thought.

But first, and in the meanwhile, what he didn’t want was some D.A.‘s investigator, spurred on by Pullios’s zeal, to discover this apparent connection and ruin Andy’s life. And in fact, there might be no connection, or an innocent one. Although Hardy couldn’t imagine what it might be.

Nevertheless, the Boy Scout in him deemed it best to be prepared. He copied the file.

*     *     *     *     *

David Freeman thought it had been a long day, but not without its rewards. The trial falling to Andy Fowler had been a godsend, one that he, Freeman, had never given up hope on but one which he couldn’t possibly have counted on.

He had finished a decent meal and a couple of solid drinks at the Buena Vista Bar — not the birthplace but the American foster home of Irish Coffee — and was taking the cable car up toward Nob Hill, named for the Nobs who had originally claimed it as their own: Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, Charles Crocker and Collis P. Huntington. Freeman lived there himself in a penthouse apartment a block from the Fairmont Hotel, just above the Rue Lepic, one of his favorite restaurants.

But tonight he didn’t want to go straight home. It was full dark, surprisingly warm again. He sat on the cable car’s hard bench, cantered against the steep grade, rocking with the motion, surrounded by the tourists. It was all right.

He was a man of the people and yet, somehow, above the people. He looked on them tolerantly, with few illusions. They were capable of anything — thirty-five years practicing criminal law had shown him that — but there was something he sometimes felt in a bustling rush of humanity that brought him back to himself, to who he was.

He remembered why he had chosen defense work — and there hadn’t been much glamor, and even less money, in the beginning. The field had attracted him because he knew that everyone made mistakes, everyone was guilty of something. What the world needed, what people needed, was forgiveness and understanding, at least to have their side heard. He described himself, to himself, as a cynical romantic. And he had to admit he was seldom bored.

He dismounted the cable car at the Fairmont and decided to prolong the night and the mood, take a walk, reflect. May Shinn was constantly referring to Owen Nash and always managed to mention his cigars. Freeman found it had given him the taste for one, and he stopped in at the smoke shop and picked up a Macanudo. Outside, while he was lighting up by the valet station, a well-dressed man tried to sell him a genuine Rolex Presidential watch for three hundred dollars. Freeman declined.

He strolled west, over the crest of the hill, craving another sight of the Bay at night. The cigar was full-flavored, delicious.

After the conference he’d had today with Andy Fowler, he was sure he was going to win.

Fowler shouldn’t have gotten the trial. Certainly, when he’d hired Freeman, that couldn’t have been contemplated. May was in Municipal Court and there was no possible way it could wind up in Andy’s courtroom.

Even after the grand-jury indictment had moved it into Superior Court, the odds were still six to one against Fowler getting it. But, even at those odds, Fowler should have gone to Leo Chomorro, spoken to him privately, and taken himself out of the line.

Except that feelings between Andy Fowler and Leo Chomorro were strained, to say the least. Forgetting their philosophical differences, and they were substantial, on a personal level Fowler had been one of the few judges singled out by name in Chomorro’s report to the governor on the ‘candy-ass’ nature of the San Francisco bench. Fowler, in turn, had been an outspoken critic of Chomorro’s appointment to the court. More, Freeman knew through legal community scuttlebutt that Fowler was the man most responsible for Chomorro’s extended sojourn on Calendar. So, for any and all of these reasons, Fowler hadn’t gone to Chomorro, and that’s when he’d cut himself off at the pass.

Because he’d gone on the assumption that he had a fallback, fail-safe position even if the trial came up in his department. Freeman smiled, thinking of it — not unkindly, it was consistent with his view of the folly of man, even judges. Fowler had thought that of course, without a doubt, there was no question that if the Shinn trial came to his courtroom, David Freeman, defense counsel, would exercise his option to challenge the presiding judge, not having to give a reason, and that would be the end of that — the trial would go to another judge.

But Freeman hadn’t challenged, which, of course, was what had prompted the conference.

*     *     *     *     *

Fowler, arms crossed, stood just inside the door to his chambers. ‘David, what the hell are you doing?’

‘I’m defending my client. That’s what you hired me to do.’

‘I certainly didn’t think she would get to this courtroom.’

‘No, neither did I.’

‘Well, you have to challenge. I can’t hear this case.’

Freeman hadn’t answered. His hands were in his pockets. He knew he looked rumpled, mournful, sympathetic. Two weeks before he’d been Andy Fowler’s savior, now he was his enemy.

He loved the drama of it.

Fowler had turned, walking to the window. ‘What am I supposed to do, David?’

‘You could recuse yourself, cite conflict.’

‘I can’t do that now.’

Freeman knew he couldn’t.

‘I can’t have my relationship with her come out.’

Chomorro, even Fowler’s allies, would eat him alive for that. It was bad form for judges to go with prostitutes. But sometimes the best argument was silence. Freeman walked up to the judge’s desk and straightened some pencils.

‘David, you’ve got to challenge.’

Freeman shook his head. ‘You hired me to do the best job defending my client. A trial in your courtroom is clearly to her advantage. I’m sorry if it is inconvenient to you.’

‘Inconvenient? This is a disaster. It’s totally unethical. I can’t let this happen.’

‘That, Judge, is your decision.’ He was matter-of-fact. ‘If it’s any consolation, I have no intention of betraying your confidence.’

Fowler’s eyes seemed glazed. ‘Does May know?’

‘I’d bet against it. I told her it was free advertising for me. It seemed to go down.’

‘Jesus.’ He ran a hand through his hair. Suddenly he looked haggard and old. ‘Jesus Christ.’ He walked around in little circles, then stopped. ‘Do you think I could give her a fair trial, David?’

There it was, the rationality kicking in. That’s what people did, Freeman knew. They made their own actions, however wrong, somehow justified.

Fowler continued, ‘If it ever comes out, I’m truly ruined. Would she say anything?’

‘Why would she, especially since I’m going to get her off? It wouldn’t be to her advantage. Now or ever.’

‘You’re going to get her off?’

‘Of course. There’s no evidence, Andy.’

The judge lowered his voice. ‘But she did it, David.’

‘No one can prove my client killed anybody. If the prosecution can be kept from sexual innuendo and racial slurs, she will be acquitted. It will be essential to control the tone in the courtroom.’

The cigar had gone out and he chewed happily on the butt. It had been a satisfying performance, its outcome so sweet he almost wanted to dance a little jig when he left chambers.

Of course, on the downside, Andy Fowler, with whom he’d always gotten along, had his neck on the block. Andy couldn’t recuse himself without admitting his relationship with May, and he wasn’t going to do that. He was right, it would end his career, and the revelation at this late date in the proceedings would be particularly damning.

But he’d gotten himself in this position. You made your own luck. Good or bad. Andy was a big boy. He should have known better.