John Lescroart (2 page)

“Sounds like he's coming around,” Glitsky said.

Ridley Banks pulled a toot sweet around the front of the car and got himself standing between his lieutenant and the lights at the head of the alley. There'd been so many accusations of police brutality lately that the media were watching for it at every opportunity. And now his lieutenant was giving them something. Ridley motioned with his head, a warning, then spoke in a whisper. “Cameras, Abe. Heads up.”

Glitsky was all innocence. “What? The poor guy fell.” The suspect lay unmoving at his feet. He hadn't moved after the first rollover. The lieutenant looked over the hood of the squad car to Medrano and Petrie. “Take this garbage to the detail until he wakes up.”

Petrie looked at his partner again. Neither of them had ever met Glitsky before and he was making an impression—he wasn't one of your touchy-feely modern law enforcement community facilitators. The younger officer cleared his throat and Glitsky glared. “What?”

Petrie swallowed, finally got it out. “The detail, sir?”

“What about it?”

Medrano took over. “The guy looks good for medical eval, Lieutenant. We were thinking we'd show him to the paramedics.”

Glitsky knew that this meant the suspect would probably wind up going to the hospital, where there were secure rooms for jail inmates who needed medical care. This prospect didn't much appeal to him. “What for?”

Medrano shrugged. It wasn't that he cared personally, but the lieutenant's suggestion ran counter to the protocol. He wanted to cover himself. “Get him cleared before we take him anywhere, maybe start detox before he goes into withdrawal.”

Glitsky had a deep and ancient scar that ran across his mouth, and now with his lips pursed it burned as a whitish gash under the hawk nose, the jutting chin. Glitsky's mother had been African-American, his father Jewish—his visage was dark, intense, hooded. “How do we know he needs medical care?”

Medrano risked a glance to where the suspect slumped against the door in the backseat. He was at best semiconscious, filthy, still bleeding from where his head had hit the pavement. “We don't, sir. But the paramedics are here. To be safe—”

Glitsky cut Medrano off. “He's just drunk. I want him in homicide. You bring him up. That's the end of this discussion.”

Petrie and Medrano looked at one another and said nothing. They were too intimidated to do anything but nod, get the man back into the car and start the drive down to the Hall of Justice.

Ridley Banks bit his tongue. Glitsky was putting out the word that he intended to let this suspect get all the way into withdrawal before he would acknowledge any problem. This would ensure that the man endured at least a little of what was purportedly the worst known hell on earth, and the orders struck Ridley as gratuitously cruel. More, they weren't smart. Neither was the earlier door-opening
incident. He knew that if the suspect was in withdrawal from heroin, the paramedics and people at County could set him up in short order. Then the agony of withdrawal could be mitigated. They'd get a better statement from a set-up suspect at San Francisco General Hospital than they ever could from a sick, sweating junkie in withdrawal at the Hall of Justice. If he was merely drunk, he could be in a cell at the jail by midmorning. Either way, they would have a clean interrogation within a reasonable period of time. Glitsky's orders wouldn't accomplish anything good.

As he watched the squad car backing out of Maiden Lane, Ridley wondered what else might be going on. He and Abe had both known Elaine Wager, worked with her, when she'd been a high-profile rising young star with the district attorney's office. Ridley, himself, had found his guts more than ordinarily roiling at the scene when he realized the woman's identity. She was one of their own, part not only of the law enforcement but also of the African-American community. Even to Ridley, whose job was homicide, on some level it hurt.

Abe's reaction, though, seemed a long march beyond hurt. Ridley had come to know most of his lieutenant's moods, which generally ran the gamut from grumpy to glum, but he'd never before seen him as he was tonight—in a clear and quiet unreasonable rage, breaking his own sacred rules about prisoners and regulations.

Walking back to where the body lay, the knot of people bunched in the mouth of the alley, Ridley decided to risk a question. “You all right, Abe?”

The lieutenant abruptly stopped walking. His nostrils flared under piercing eyes—Ridley thought of a panicked horse. Abe let out a long breath, took in another one, looked down toward the body. “Yeah, sure,” he said. “Why not?” A pause. “Fucking peachy.”

Abe made it a point to avoid vulgarity. He'd even lectured his inspectors, decrying their casual use of profanity. His troops had been known to make fun of him for it behind his back. So Ridley was surprised, and his face
must have shown it. The lieutenant's eyes narrowed. “You got a problem, Ridley?”

“No, sir,” he replied. Whatever it was, it was serious. “No problem at all.”

O
n that same day—Monday, February 1, at a little after five o'clock in the afternoon, Dismas Hardy placed a call to another San Francisco attorney.

He put his feet up on his desk and listened to the phone ring, was transferred to voice mail, heard the beep. “Mr. Logan,” he began, “this is Dismas Hardy again. If you're keeping track, this is my fourth call. I'd really appreciate a callback. Same number I left the other three times.”

Hanging up, Hardy stewed for thirty seconds, then stood and walked out of his office on the top floor of the Freeman Building on Sutter Street in downtown San Francisco. His was the only office on the top floor, and he had decided to take the stairs to the lobby a floor below him. Hardy leased his office directly from David Freeman and was the only attorney in the building who did not work for Freeman's firm.

His landlord was pushing seventy. He was short, almost fat, always slovenly dressed; his female admirers, and he had several, would concede that he had a prodigious, nearly mythic ugliness—unkempt hair, eyebrows of white steel wool, a turnip nose scarred by rosacea and alcohol, hanging jowls, liverish lips. But he had a great if unorthodox personal charm. And no one disputed that Freeman was a brilliant lawyer who lived for his work. With Mel Belli's passing, he had assumed the mantle of most famous attorney in the city.

The receptionist's station commanded the center of the lobby. At the phones, Phyllis, an attractive elderly witch with whom Hardy had an off-again, off-yet-again relationship, was handling what appeared to be several calls at once. Hardy sauntered casually past her station. He even
nodded genially as he took a few extra steps toward the long hallway that housed the tiny airless cubicles of the firm's associates. It was all an elaborate ruse—his intention was to go and interrupt Freeman without having to explain himself to the Keeper of his Gate. And for an instant, even as he hung a hard left and strode toward the great man's door, he thought he would make it unmolested.

But no.

“He's busy, Mr. Hardy. He's not to be disturbed.”

Hardy stopped. Phyllis was facing the other way. How could she have seen him? Further proof that she had a personal connection to the devil. She could spin her head around in a full circle like the girl in
The Exorcist
.

Now she fixed him with Favored Visage #1, Stern and Unyielding. He gave her back his winsome, disarming Irish smile, pulled a De Niro. “Are you talking to me?”

Phones forgotten, her body came around, up and out of her chair in one fluid motion. She was moving not toward Hardy but directly to Freeman's door, to all appearances ready to throw her body in front of it if need be to defend its inviolability. “He's trying to get a motion written. He was very specific.”

Hardy kept his grin on, inclined his head in the direction of the hallway where the associates toiled. “That's just to keep the kids from bothering him. He'll welcome some adult companionship. Watch.” Striking like a snake, Hardy reached around the receptionist and rapped quickly twice on the door.

“It's open!” Freeman bellowed from within. “Come on in.”

Hardy stepped back, spread his palms in a gesture that said “See? What did I tell you.”

“If he'd have said ‘Go away,' I'd be gone. Promise.” He turned the knob and pushed at the door. “Excuse me,” he said politely, moving around her, closing the door behind him.

Pen in hand and a mangled cigar between his lips, Freeman squinted up over his yellow legal pad. A thick bluish haze hung in the air. Hardy recognized the wine
bottle by the telephone as a Silver Oak Cabernet—at least fifty bucks retail if you could find it. The old man straightened up in his chair, put the pen down and drained the last inch from his wineglass, making appreciative smacking noises. “God drinks this stuff,” he said.

“How does He afford it?” Hardy crossed the room to the window and threw it open. He enjoyed the occasional cigar himself, but the smoke in the room was nearly suffocating. “And while we're asking ‘how' questions, how do you breathe in here?”

Freeman waved that off. “If you interrupted me on billable time to criticize my lifestyle, you can use the same door you came in at. Otherwise, get yourself a glass—you've got to have a sip of this.”

Hanging by the window—the afternoon breeze had picked up, whipping down Sutter, pulling the smoke out—Hardy leaned against the sill. “As soon as enough of this clears to be able to taste it. Meanwhile, I've got a great idea for a good time.”

“What's that?”

“We can fire Phyllis right now. It'll be fun. You realize that anybody wants to see you, they've got to mount a campaign.”

“That's what I pay her for.” He was pouring another glass for himself. “You got around her, I notice. Keeps you sharp.” A slurping sip, another sigh of appreciation. “So? What else? You didn't come to talk about Phyllis.”

“No. I came to talk about Dash Logan.”

Freeman frowned deeply. “What about him?”

“Using the normal channels—say, the telephone—I can't reach him. I thought you might have an idea.”

“Why do you want to?”

“One of my clients is getting sued by one of his clients. There are also some criminal charges. I thought I'd feel him out, see where he's coming from.”

Freeman leaned back in his chair, drew in a breath. “You want my advice, forgo the conversation. He'll just lie to you. I'd file the response and prepare to fight dirty.”

Still at the window, Hardy crossed his arms. “Not exactly a ringing character endorsement.”

“Read between the lines and it gets worse.” Freeman shook his head in disgust. “The man's a disgrace, Diz. Personally and professionally. If the bar had any teeth, they'd have yanked his card years ago.”

“For what?”

“You name it. Malpractice, bribery, theft of client funds, extortion, perjury, drug and alcohol abuse. I can't believe you don't know him.”

Hardy shrugged. “I've heard stories, sure. But people tell stories about you, too.”

“Those are legends,” Freeman corrected him. “Logan. Well, you know all the lawyer jokes?”

“Most of 'em.”

“Well, they made them up about Dash Logan, especially the one about the difference between a catfish and a lawyer. One's a bottom-dwelling scum sucker and the other one's a fish. Here's a hint—Logan's not the fish.”

“You don't like him.”

Freeman chuckled, but he wasn't amused. “I really believe there's good in a lot of people, Diz, almost everybody. Almost.” He came forward in his chair again, swirled his wineglass and took a mouthful. “Talking about him almost sours this wine, and that takes some doing.”

Hardy had taken a glass from the sideboard and held it out. “Let a professional tell you how bad the sour is getting.”

Freeman picked up the bottle and poured. “What do you smell?”

“Tobacco.” He held up a hand—he was kidding—then took a sip and his eyes lit up. “Although I must admit there's a bit of wine in the aftertaste.” He crossed the room, where he settled himself on the couch. “So if Logan calls back?”

“I'll tell you a story.” Freeman pushed his chair away from his desk, faced Hardy and crossed one leg over the other. He drank some wine. “Fifteen years ago I got
teamed with Logan on a two-defendant murder case. This was in the days before talking movies, remember, when we had a real D.A.—Chris Locke—who would put people in jail from time to time. Also, this is one of the few times in my illustrious career when I thought my client—Aaron Washburn, I still remember—was mostly innocent. Maybe he was driving the car, but that's all. He was too young and too chicken to agree to be the wheelman for a hit. In any case, his main flaw was loyalty to the shooter—Logan's client, a real loser named Latrone Molyneux.

“So anyway, Locke declares we're going to have joint disposition of our two defendants—either they both plead or they both go to trial. But he needs fifteen years from my guy. Well, I decide I'm going to trial, one because my boy, Aaron, didn't do it—he wasn't the shooter and didn't know it was going to go down and even if he did, they couldn't prove it. And two, because that's who I am. I'm not taking my client's money and lots of it to plead 'em to half a lifetime in the joint.

“And it's not as though I've got to sink Logan's client, remember. My guy just says he was in the car the whole time and has no idea what happened.” Somewhere in this recitation, Freeman had gotten to his feet, reliving it again. He paced the office, door to window, a caged bear. “All right. Now I'm working on my kid's defense, keeping my no-good colleague Mr. Logan in the loop because, you know, that's what we do. But I notice he's not making too many of our joint motion hearings, he's got my witnesses spooked—I hear rumors that he's actually scoring dope off some of these people—the judge is getting pretty pissed off with delays and no-shows and really awful paperwork.

“But mostly old Dash is walking the walk, I'm giving him the benefit, you know, professional courtesy. We're taking this thing to trial and he's got to know what I know, right?

“Then, two weeks before we're scheduled for jury selection, guess what? No, don't. I'll tell you. Logan comes
by here, says he's decided he's going to plead Latrone. He's got his fee. He doesn't have the time for a trial.

“So as you might imagine, things get a little hot between us. I remind him he can't plead if I'm going to trial, which I'm damn well going to do. So he threatens me—if I take it to trial, Latrone will rat out Aaron, say he was just standing around minding his own business when Aaron drove up and asked him to go for a ride. He—Latrone—didn't know there was going to be a shooting. It was Aaron's idea, Aaron was the shooter.

“Anyway, long story short, what could I do? They'd probably both get life. This way they both plead out—fifteen years. Now, you want to hear my favorite part?”

“That wasn't it?”

“No. Listen to this. Early on, I decided it might be worth a try to get bail for these kids. It was a shaky case, first adult offense for both of them. They weren't leaving the jurisdiction anyway. But Dash Logan won't go there. Gives me a line of shit about it's too risky, we'll alienate the judge, it'd be better to save any judicial favors for the trial—the trial! Hah! So he persuades me—if I make the motion for my client, he has to for his, and that won't happen. The judge will deny both, so what's the point?”

“I give up,” Hardy said. “What was the point?”

“The point!” Freeman was nearly screaming now. “The point was he wanted to keep his boy Latrone in jail. You know why? 'Cause he was fucking Latrone's seventeen-year-old girlfriend, that's why.”

“Well, see,” Hardy said. “At least he had a good reason.” But he was shaking his head and clucked in disapproval. “That's a pretty appalling story.”

Freeman was breathing heavily. He went back to his desk and put himself on the outside of another inch of his wine, then poured some more. “He's an appalling—”

On the old man's desk, the telephone buzzed. He reached over and picked it up, listened, held it out to Hardy. “It's Phyllis, she says there's a woman out in the lobby asking to see you.”

“She's lying. I don't have any appointments. She's just
trying to figure out a way to get me out of here, return you to your blessed solitude. I wonder, does this guy Dash Logan need a receptionist?”

Freeman held up a finger, listened some more. “Dorothy Elliot? Jeff's wife?”

 

Leaving his superb wine in its glass on the coffee table, untouched except for that first sip, Hardy rocketed to his feet on his way to the door. Behind him, he heard Freeman telling Phyllis, “He's on his way out right now.”

Dorothy greeted him with a nod, an apologetic smile, a few quiet words. It was immediately obvious that something was terribly wrong—her trademark cheerful spark was gone. It was equally clear that she didn't want to discuss any part of whatever it was in the lobby. The staircase was not wide and he let her lead the way.

Following her, he was struck by the stiffness of her carriage, her wide shoulders back, her arms hanging straight down at her sides. One step at a time, she was hiking a steep grade with a heavy pack at altitude. It occurred to him that her husband Jeff, one of his friends and a
Chronicle
columnist who suffered from multiple sclerosis, might suddenly have died.

At the landing, she stopped and he came up behind her, put an arm on her shoulder. She leaned into him for a second. Then he opened the door and they were in his office.

As he was closing the door, she found her voice. “I'm so sorry to come barging in on you like this, Dismas. I didn't know . . .” She lifted her hands, dropped them. Her lip quivered—sorrow? Or rage? She set her jaw, began again. “I don't know . . .”

“It's all right.” He gave her a chance to continue, and when it didn't seem she could, he asked softly, “What don't you know? Is it Jeff?”