The Hearing (53 page)

As expected, Glitsky had come into the Solarium first thing in the morning. He had, in fact, noticed the picture of Loretta Wager that Hardy had left out on the table. And seeing it had jogged his memory—it was the one item in the box that he hadn’t had the heart to really look at. Which is what he did then, taking the cardboard backing out of the frame, discovering the NCR copies of checks that Elaine had hidden there after she’d removed them from Logan’s office.

Hardy was now presenting them to the court. “Your honor, I submit for the court’s inspection Xerox copies of Mr. Logan’s supposedly voided checks, numbers 314, 322, 337, 343, 351 and 374, all referenced to various subcontractors with Gironde Industries, with which I’m sure the court is familiar. And all of these checks are made out to the same payee.” He turned and faced the prosecution’s table. “Gabriel Torrey.”

After the uproar in the courtroom passed, Pratt, especially, wanted to retire to discuss this startling evidence in the judge’s chambers. If she thought this was going to somehow play to her advantage, Judge Hill, his ire now truly aroused, disabused her of that notion.

Hardy was glad to see that he didn’t have to draw a map for the judge. Just inside the door to his chambers, the Cadaver didn’t even bother shucking himself out of his robes, but spun on the assemblage with a hail of invective as the court reporter struggled to set up and record what he was saying. The chief assistant district attorney’s involvement in any scheme like this was unconscionable and probably criminal. The judge opined that it might be a good idea for Torrey to get himself a good attorney of his own.

“Your honor, there is a simple explanation. I—”

Hill cut him off. “I’m not interested. Whether or not you have done anything unethical or even criminal is beside the point, and I’m predicting you’re going to get all the chance you need to explain everything you’ve done.” He whirled now on the district attorney herself. “And in any case, Ms. Pratt, the appearance of impropriety is so strong, I’m surprised that you let your deputy proceed at all in this matter. No, I’m more than surprised. I’m appalled. Can it be you had no knowledge of your chief assistant’s involvement in any of this?”

Pratt’s face had gone from crimson to pale, from rage to a tight-lipped, controlled panic. She seemed unable to respond at all, but it didn’t matter as the judge turned again. “Now Mr. Hardy.”

Reluctant to throw any water on the judge’s blaze, the defense team had been doing a fair imitation of a couple of statues over by the window, and now at the summons, Hardy came forward a step or two and assumed an at-ease position. “Yes, your honor.”

“It appears that you’ve produced your smoking gun linking Mr. Torrey here to his friends outside in the gallery. I’m willing to buy that there was something to hide at Mr. Logan’s office, and that Ms. Wager found it. For the sake of argument I’ll even concede the possibility of criminal collusion—destroying the checks, the copies, cooking the ledger entries. But here I must caution you—we are engaged in a hearing on a charge of murder—”

“Your honor, excuse me.” Hardy found it difficult to believe that Torrey had the brass to speak up and interrupt at this juncture, but the man’s arrogance apparently knew no bounds. He didn’t wait for the judge’s acknowledgment, either, but went straight to his point. “The court ought to know that I talked to Elaine about this problem several weeks ago, just after her first time at Logan’s, when, in fact, she did run across the check receipts by mistake. She knew she had no legal reason to have seen them. She came to me because we used to be friends.”

“More than friends,” Freeman corrected mildly.

Torrey shrugged that away, although Pratt once again seemed to take it almost as a blow. “The point is I’ve got the notes of that meeting in my minute file. You’re welcome to send somebody up and check right now. So there wasn’t anything to cover up. And just for the record, your honor, I’m aware of what it looks like, but Dash isn’t the world’s best bookkeeper and his secretary . . . in any event, the money was payment for personal gambling debts—”

Hardy couldn’t restrain himself. “Oh, for the love of God . . .”

But Hill held up a hand, spoke up. “This is eighteen thousand dollars we’re talking about, Mr. Torrey.”

“Yes, your honor.” He hung his head briefly in a show of embarrassment or contrition. “I’ve spoken to Ms. Pratt about it. We’ve decided I ought to seek some counseling—”

Hill’s expression curdled in distaste, but he wasn’t going to pursue this line any further. “Well, as I’ve said, Mr. Torrey, you’ll have ample opportunity to bare your soul and transgressions over the coming weeks. But, Mr. Hardy, this does bring me back to my topic.” He inhaled deeply. “The fact is that we’re here to determine if the evidence says that your client ought to go to trial for Ms. Wager’s murder. The
evidence
,” he repeated solemnly. “And I must tell you that to this point the evidence remains overwhelming, simply overwhelming, against Mr. Burgess. I trust you haven’t lost sight of that.”

“No, your honor.”

“So you wish to continue with your case in chief? If you want to make a motion to relieve the D.A. and substitute the A.G., I’ll hear it. But I still haven’t heard anything casting doubt on Mr. Burgess’s guilt.”

“We have a few more witnesses, your honor, yes.”

The Cadaver wasn’t even sure that he’d heard right. Certainly, he conveyed to everyone in the room his belief that no one Hardy could call would make any difference to the evidence already arrayed against Cole. But it was still a capital case and the prosecution had proven itself inept and possibly—hell, probably—venal if not pathetic. If Pratt lost a slam dunk of a case like this after making it a political barn burner, it would serve her right. Maybe she’d learn something, although Hill doubted that very strongly. “All right,” he said to Hardy at last. “But they’d better be talking about evidence in the Wager murder case. Keep them on point or I’ll dismiss them out of hand. Am I making myself clear?”

“Yes, your honor,” Hardy said.

As he answered questions about his rank and professional duties, Paul Thieu sat upright in the witness chair—confident, alert, professional, cooperative. Hardy knew that he had not slept a wink in more than twenty-four hours, yet his eyes were clear, his face shaved, his coat and slacks crisply pressed. The man was a marvel.

And now it was time to get to the meat of it. “Sergeant Thieu, as a homicide inspector, can you explain how you are involved in this case before the court today?”

“Sure. Another inspector in the detail, Ridley Banks, has been missing now for over ten days. The presumption is that he has met with foul play. One of the witnesses in this case, Gene Visser, admitted on the stand here that he’d talked to Inspector Banks, apparently on the night he disappeared. We believed that meeting concerned the murder of Elaine Wager, but we didn’t know exactly why Inspector Banks had asked for it. Based on that, and since Mr. Visser was the last person to see him, I requested a search warrant on Mr. Visser’s place of business.”

“And what were you looking for?”

“I guess the best answer is anything we could find that might relate to this meeting, including documentary evidence to verify whether it actually took place and how long it lasted.”

“Inspector Thieu, when did you conduct this search?”

“Well, we began this morning at around seven o’clock, and I believe it’s still going on.”

“Thank you.” Hardy turned and walked back to the defense table, under which he’d placed the cardboard box from the Solarium. Reaching down, he pulled out a large Ziploc bag which contained a gun and brought it forward.

The gallery, seeing what it was, began its buzzing again, and kept it up as Hardy got to the stand. He raised his voice slightly. “Now Sergeant Thieu, do you recognize this gun?”

Thieu took it, looked at the evidence tag, checked inside and nodded. “Yes, sir, I do.”

“Would you please tell the court about it?”

“This is a Glock .38 automatic that we found in the course of our search of Mr. Visser’s office in the lower left-hand drawer of his desk.”

Hardy was aware of an increase in the noise behind him, but it abruptly ceased when Pratt’s voice cut through it, objecting. “The murder weapon in this case has already been entered in evidence. What’s the significance of introducing this new gun?”

Hill looked the question at Hardy, who responded, “Your honor, the provenance of the murder weapon in this case has been a critical issue from the beginning.”

“But this new gun is not the murder weapon.”

“No, that’s true. But as your honor will see with my next witness, it bears on it.”

“All right, I’ll allow it. Go ahead.”

Hardy took a breath, blew it out in a rush of relief, and had the Glock entered into evidence as Defense J and excused the witness. Pratt chose not to cross-examine.

Hardy stole a glance back out over the bar rail. The tension in the gallery was, he thought, palpable. Logan and Visser were sitting next to one another in the first row on the prosecution side. There wasn’t a soul in the courtroom who wasn’t aware of their earlier testimonies yesterday and today; Glitsky had whispered to him at the break that he had had them both reminded by the door bailiff as they attempted to leave earlier today that they were still under subpoena. If they needed so much as to go to the bathroom, another bailiff would be happy to accompany them.

Jonas Walsh sulked in an aisle chair on the prosecution side, three rows from the back and another four behind Muhammed Adek and some of his friends.

On Hardy’s side, Clarence Jackman and the Three Musketeers sat midway back, along with Treya and Glitsky, Gina Roake, a few other R&J associates. As Logan had left the stand at the beginning of the first recess, Hardy had seen that he obviously recognized Amy Wu from last night. He had charged back with a clear notion at least to verbally abuse her until Jackman stood up, intimidating and unmoving, and blocked his way. Similarly, before court had been called into session, Torrey had all but attacked Jeff Elliot for his
Examiner
article as his wife Dorothy, who’d finally relented about supporting her brother, had wheeled him up the aisle. Now a phalanx of Jeff’s fellow reporters surrounded both of them—a deal of the background white noise originated in this area. And finally, up close, front row center, sat Cole’s mother, who’d been in the same seat every day, who’d kept her son’s spirits alive with her jail visits and her unfailing hope.

Now Hardy looked down at his client, gave him a small confident nod and called his next witness. “The defense calls Officer Gary Bellew.”

Like Thieu, Bellew was a policeman, but the similarity between the gung-ho, brilliant Vietnamese homicide inspector and the young, surly custodian of the gun room of the evidence locker ended there. Bellew’s uniform hadn’t been cleaned or pressed in days and he needed a haircut, but then before this morning, he had had no warning that he would be appearing as a witness. More instructive was Bellew’s obvious resentment at his presence in court today. He seemed to project a defensive attitude, that somehow whatever he was made to disclose would turn out to be his fault. And, Hardy knew, in this he wasn’t all wrong.

“Officer Bellew, can you tell the court your assignment at the present time?” Hardy kept the questions simple, nonthreatening. One following the other, falling like dominoes. “Is this assignment a rotating one?” “How long have you been in charge of the gun room down there?” “And what is its basic function?” “Who’s allowed down there?” “Is all evidence assigned to a specific case?” “Are there other guns kept there?” “How does that work?”

Hardy got Bellew talking until the overt resentment began to settle out. Now the young officer was sitting back, answering matter-of-factly. “How does what work? Oh, the other guns? Usually some uniform comes in with a piece . . . a gun . . . that he picked up off the street, you know. If it’s not registered, he keeps it and brings it on down, no case assigned, so it’s not evidence really. It’s just a gun nobody should have.”

“So what happens then?”

“Then we log the registration number into this big book and throw the gun in a box.”

“You throw the gun in a box?”

“Yeah. We call it the piece box.”

“The piece box. I see. How many guns are typically in this piece box?”

“I don’t know for sure. When it’s full, maybe a hundred, something like that.”

“A hundred guns. And this box is just sitting out where anyone can see it, or get their hands on the guns?”

“Yeah, well, yeah.” Bellew sensed a criticism, but couldn’t draw a bead on it precisely. “But it’s not like anybody can get in there in the first place. You’ve got to sign in and then somebody’s with you every minute.”