The Hearing (36 page)

God! Hardy wished that Logan had been Cullen Alsop’s lawyer, but that had been that nice kid this morning, Westbrook. He didn’t know what it would mean—Logan knowing Cullen—but the symmetry of it was appealing as hell.

Reluctantly, he drew a line through Cullen’s name.

Another thought struck him and he hastily scratched out his own client’s name. If, as appeared to be the case, they were working on the assumption that Cole was innocent . . .

McNeil, Oberlin, Torrey, Elaine, Logan.

It was a small town, circling back on itself. Rather like a noose.

I
saac Glitsky was adamant. “He’s not going out anywhere. Doctor’s orders.”

“But yesterday . . .”

“Yesterday,” Jacob interjected from behind his brother, “he snuck out. Made believe he was going to bed, sent us out to have a nice day, then went out and tried to kill himself. Can you believe that?”

Hardy nodded. “Sounds like your father.”

“He’s been asleep for twelve hours,” Isaac said. “His body wants to recover even if he doesn’t.”

Hardy was confused. “I thought . . . he told me . . . I mean, they let him out.”

“To go home, maybe putter around in the house, avoid stress. That’s all.” Isaac had his arms crossed over his chest. “Let me guess, he left that part out.”

“He said he was fine. Cleared. Ready to rock and roll.”

“Which he is not,” Jacob said. “Maybe in a week . . .”

“Maybe.” The older brother wasn’t making any promises. “The heart’s got to heal before he stresses it again. You’d think that would occur to him.”

“You’d think so,” Hardy agreed. He shook his head, frustrated. “I love your father, but the man can be a moron. Tell him I said so, then sit on him if you have to.”

Glitsky might be reluctant to call Treya, but Hardy had no problem with it. It had occurred to him that since everybody was essentially working to the same end, it made sense that everyone do it in the same place. He’d called her at Rand & Jackman first thing this Friday morning and she had agreed. She’d be delighted to come to his offices and help facilitate the work of the associates. She might even have some ideas of her own. Hardy told her he’d be happy to use them.

Amy Wu stood an inch over five feet tall. She had large enough breasts so that people rarely noticed the bit of thickness at her waist. Half Chinese and half black, she had an unusual and extraordinarily compelling face. Under a small and flattened nose, her sensuous lips might have been collagened but were not. Her complexion was dark honey, small-pored, unlined. She was twenty-six years old and had never bought a drink in her life without someone asking for her identification. There was a heaviness to the lids over dark brown, almost liquid eyes, although she was rarely taken for an Asian. Thick, straight, shining black hair cascaded a few inches past her shoulders. At the office, she dressed in a woman’s business suit, but today she was in jeans and hiking boots, a black turtleneck sweater.

She’d already spoken to five students who had been in Elaine’s moot court class. They had all directed her to a single student. Muhammed Malouf Adek was more than happy to talk to her, as what young man would not be? He was sitting on the floor in one of the hallways at Hastings, a book open on his legs. He was eating an apple. Amy hovered over him until he looked up. “What are you studying?” she asked, smiling down.

In fifteen minutes, they were in the cafeteria. She told him a version of the truth about who she was and the general reason she was here—to talk about Elaine. It didn’t seem to bother him.

“People say that you and she were close at one time.”

He shrugged. “She was my teacher.”

“I’d understood it was a little more than that.” Her eyebrows went up ingenuously.

“All right. They have a mentor program here. I signed up for that. I was doing poorly in my other courses.” Muhammed looked at her with a kind of challenge in his eyes.

She pegged his age at perhaps a year older than she was—maybe he was even thirty, which was slightly old for a law student. But his eyes were too bright, too hard and piercing. His beard was short, extremely thick, almost like wool. His teeth were white, but very uneven, and his hygiene was poor—he hadn’t washed his hair in a while; his jeans looked as though they would stand up by themselves; it appeared he’d worn the brown shirt for most of the week.

“And you became friends?”

“I don’t know about that. We did not go out.”

Amy wrinkled up her face, confusion all over it.

He couldn’t take his eyes off her. “What’s the matter?”

“Only that I’ve heard differently. I wanted to talk to somebody who knew Elaine pretty well, and if that’s not you . . .” She made to get up.

He gripped her arm above the wrist. “We had coffee a few times,” he said. “But there wasn’t anything . . . between us.” Realizing what he’d done, he released his grip. “What do you want to know about Elaine for, anyway? She was not what she pretended to be.”

“And what was that?”

He hesitated, decided against answering.

“Muhammed,” she said. “You’ve heard she died last week, haven’t you?”

He nodded. “It was the will of Allah.”

“Well, yes, but it was maybe a little more than that. Somebody killed her.”

He sat up abruptly. “That was not me. They arrested that other man.”

“I know. No one is saying it was you. I’m not saying that.” She smiled again. “Please, Muhammed, we’re just talking, all right?”

“But what are we talking about?”

“We’re talking about who she was.” She leaned in closer to him. “We were thinking of some kind of a memorial, maybe a statue, something like that. It will be very nice, out in the lobby, as a tribute to her.”

“To Elaine?” Amy realized that Treya had chosen a perfect cover story for them. Clearly infuriated, Muhammed’s eyes were burning.

“Yes. Elaine. But you know, it’s political. We would not want to go to all that trouble and expense if there was some embarrassing . . . if she—”

“She was a whore. A liar and a whore. She believed in nothing.”

“Well, surely—”

He slammed the table. All around the room, other students looked up, startled out of their studies. Muhammed was oblivious to it. “She pretended to be coming to Islam. I would read from the Koran, and she would nod, pretending. ‘Yes,’ she would say, ‘that’s interesting. That’s good.’ But it was all false. She was white inside. She sold her body for their money, for her doctor’s money.” There was spittle on Muhammed’s lips. His breath came in ragged little gulps.

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“She was here,” he rasped. “She was always here.”

“Here at the school?”

“Yes.”

“But I mean alone? Did you see her alone after she got engaged?”

“I told her she had to stop. It was all a lie. She was tormenting me.”

“Stop what? You mean call off her marriage?”

“No. Teaching here. Coming here.”

“That was tormenting you?”

He nodded. “Every time I saw her. I knew she was laughing at me that I had believed her. I told her she had to stop.”

“When was this?”

“This new semester. Just now.” He gripped her hand again, so hard that it hurt her. “You must not make this thing, this memorial. She was a whore. She was laughing at Allah and, of course—” The eyes. The eyes were crazy. He laughed. “That is what happened, you know. He put an end to that.”

***

“Abe? Are you all right?”

“I’m under house arrest. My boys.”

“Dismas said you were in bed.”

“That would be accurate, but the prescription wasn’t bed rest. The doctor just doesn’t want to see me out walking the streets, but he’d actually like me to move around a little here.”

“But today? Your heart . . . ?”

“Is pumping away even as we speak. I’m sorry I didn’t call you earlier myself. I just woke up.”

“That’s a long sleep. It’s almost eleven o’clock. Are you sure you’re okay? Something else didn’t happen, did it?”

“No, nothing happened.”

“Really?”

“Really. How are we doing on our work?”

“It’s moving along, but I’m not calling about that. I’m calling about you.”

“I’m fine. This is routine. Honest. A couple more days and I’m dancing.”

“But not ’til the doctor says so, okay?”

“My jailers will see to that.”

“But you yourself?”

“Me myself, too.”

“Would you promise me?”

“I promise.”

It seemed forever before she spoke again. “All right, then,” she said. “All right.”

Treya knew that Jonas Walsh took Friday afternoons off, so she had called him at home Thursday night to prevail upon him to let somebody from the firm come by the condo he and Elaine had shared in Tiburon and look at Elaine’s things the next day. She wasn’t demanding as a matter of law, but requesting as a favor, as a friend. Elaine might have left something lying around that might prove useful to their investigation.

He didn’t like it, but the question of what he was going to do with Elaine’s belongings was still unresolved. And Treya knew that after his apology in the R&J offices here last week, she had some leverage. He’d let them look.

She was right.

But that didn’t mean he had to be pleasant about it. Walsh shook hands perfunctorily with Curtis Rhodin, but made no effort to try to be friends. “This is a total waste of some very valuable time.”

Treya had briefed Rhodin about what to expect from Walsh. In any event, it was unlikely the greeting would have thrown Curtis, who was no wimp, off his stride. He exuded confidence and
savoir vivre
. At six-three, he towered over the other man. There was no sign of fat on his body, although he carried two hundred pounds to Walsh’s one-seventy. The charcoal Brioni suit had set him back nine hundred dollars but it fit him so perfectly that it might have been his day-to-day lounging attire. His face was long and slender, his eyes somber. If Modigliani had painted men, Rhodin could have been one of his subjects.

“If you’ve got somewhere else you need to be, Doctor, I’ll be fine here on my own.” They were in a large, bright living room with sparse, almost antiseptic modern furnishings and floor-to-ceiling windows. The condo was set on a hillside overlooking the yacht harbor. The sun was out brightly here twenty-five miles north of the city, and from where they stood in the living room, the panorama was breathtaking—the Marin headlands and Mount Tamalpais on the right, Angel Island and the graceful though largely unsung Richmond Bridge in front of them, a glittering white-capped bay under a robin’s egg sky. “This is beautiful,” Rhodin said. “I couldn’t get any work done if I lived here.”

“This isn’t where I work,” the doctor replied, “and I hope the view won’t be too distracting today. I don’t really understand all this continuing investigation into Elaine’s murder. They’ve got her killer in jail, for Christ’s sake. I’d like to see an end to it.”

Rhodin nodded understandingly and tried to sound prosecutorial. “We’re on the same page, then. But we need to make sure some surprise doesn’t come up during the trial. To tell you the truth, I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be looking for. If you’ve got other plans, that’s fine, but if not and you’d like to show me where to look, it might move the process along.”

Reluctantly, Walsh led him into the back of the condo, past the gourmet kitchen—a granite countertop with dishes piled on it, more dishes stacked in the sink, a strong odor of garbage. There was an office to his left down a short hallway—two desks, two computers, some file cabinets. The bedroom was a few steps farther along on the right and Walsh showed him in. He hadn’t made the bed and made no apology for it. “That’s her closet,” he said, pointing. “The near one is her dresser. I’ll be in the office.”

Left alone, Rhodin went to work. In spite of what he’d told Walsh, he had received a reasonably specific laundry list from Hardy and Glitsky the day before. Mostly, it was stuff he’d expect to find in the office—a Rolodex file, maybe, or old checkbooks and financial records, perhaps a diary. But there might be something elsewhere—it was worth looking everywhere.

Curtis Rhodin was a methodical man. He had known Elaine only slightly—she was older and a partner at Rand & Jackman and light-years from him on many levels—and it felt strange to be going through her things, but he knew what he was supposed to do, and he was going to do it.

She had a lot of dresses, thirty pairs of shoes. There was a smaller, built-in set of drawers in her closet containing sweaters, blouses, exercise clothes. At the bottom of the lowest one, under a pile of sweatshirts, he found a smallish, flat white box. Taking it out and opening it up, he recognized it for what it was—Elaine’s collection of meaningless memorabilia from her past.