The Ophelia Cut (55 page)

“Sure,” Hardy said. “Can I get you something?”

“No. I’m good.”

“You were at the funeral?”

“In the back. I didn’t want to cause a fuss. I think it’s terrible, you know. What happened.”

“Farrell just said the same thing.” Hardy, uncomfortable with the conversation, let out a breath. “He who lives by the sword and all that. If he did, of course.”

“You really doubt it?”

Hardy gave him a tight smile. “That’ll be a ‘no comment.’ ”

With a sense of surprise, Stier said, “You think I’m trying to trick you.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s outside of the realm of the possible.”

“Man,” Stier said, shaking his head with regret. “Sometimes we are in a shitty business. I’m here because I sincerely wanted to pay my respects.”

“All right. But might I remind you that if you’d gotten your way, he’d be in jail right now.”

“That’s better than where he is now, wouldn’t you say? I took him to trial because that’s what I get paid to do.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I play the cards I’m dealt, and I’m morally obligated to try to win with them.” He paused and leaned in closer. “Also, I always try to pick a fair jury. A fair jury.”

At first Hardy didn’t grasp what he was saying. A fair . . .

Then it hit him. Five fathers of daughters. My God, Hardy thought, he had done it on purpose.

With that, Stier took a quick breath. “I’ve got a daughter, Diz. She’s twelve years old. She loves soccer and baseball and music and dancing. She’s the light of my life. If anybody did anything to her, there is no doubt in my mind, I’d kill him in a heartbeat.” He extended his hand again. “Anyway, nice working with you. Until next time.”

He turned and made his way back through the crowd.

H
ARDY TURNED ON
the light and stood in his daughter’s former bedroom at the back of his house. They’d left it the way it was when she moved out for college. Recently, Frannie had been talking about turning it into a home office for her marriage and family counseling business, save on the rent she was paying on Balboa Street. But for the moment, it was as it had been.

The Beck had kept up a corkboard with photographs of friends, her brother Vincent, her cousins, going back to her early childhood. Here she was on a horse in Golden Gate Park; bodysurfing with Vincent at Santa Cruz; with Brittany covered in mud on a riverbank somewhere; in the role of Eeyore in a grade school production; with her backpack on, hiking with her Girl Scout troop; at Heavenly Valley, skiing with her mother; reading in the front window; dressed up for her first formal dance.

Hardy took his cell phone from his belt, saw the time, and realized that it was too late to call. He didn’t like to intrude on her too often. She was busy, studying all the time, or doing whatever else she did that he didn’t need to know about. He didn’t have anything specific to say to her anyway.

Just that he loved her. And he could tell her that tomorrow. If he remembered to call her.

Well, no.

This was why, he thought, they invented texting. He got his phone again and punched in and sent a message: “Just thinking of you. 143.” Their code for “I love you.” “Dad.”

He realized that he was opening himself to good-natured ridicule by including that “Dad” at the end. Of course it was Dad. The message
came from Dad’s phone, so who else would it be? Still, he left it and pressed send.

Frannie’s footsteps sounded on the stairs, and in another moment she was standing in the doorway, barefoot in her demure cotton pajamas. “I thought you were coming upstairs in five minutes.”

“I am.”

“Yes, but that was fifteen minutes ago.” She gave him a searching look, reached out and touched his arm. “Have you been crying? Are you all right?”

“I don’t know.” He was silent for a couple of breaths.

“What is it?” Frannie asked.

It took him another second or two. Then, “I keep thinking about Mose, and then that leads to Brittany and the Beck. I don’t know what I’d do.”

“Let’s hope you never have to find out.”

His eyes went to the corkboard, came back to his wife. “I don’t even know what it is nagging at me, except if I wasn’t so goddamn clever, he still might be alive.”

“How would that be?”

“She couldn’t have got him if he was in jail.”

“Well . . . okay, true, but he didn’t want to be in jail. Nobody blames you, Dismas. You got him off, and that was what he wanted.”

Hardy chewed on his lip.

“Anyway,” Frannie said, “my understanding was that it was Gina who was so clever.”

Hardy hesitated. “Not entirely.”

“It was your idea?”

“It wasn’t even an idea when I said it. But I said it first.”

“And she ran with it.”

“Right. Brilliantly, I might add. But I keep asking myself . . . I mean, this is large-scale perjury, there’s no other way to spin it. Or fraud. Or both. Take your pick. It’s playing a little havoc with my self-image as a guy who tries to do the right thing.”

“Mostly, you do.”

He shrugged. “ ‘Mostly’ doesn’t cut it, though, does it? Everybody can do the right thing when it’s easy. This wasn’t, and I didn’t. Moses was
going to roll over on me and Abe and Gina, and I, in my fatal glibness, somehow persuaded Gina that we couldn’t let that happen, no matter what. Because I convinced her, Moses got out, and because he was out, he got killed. You see why this might be guilt-inducing? And then I find out he probably would have gotten out anyway . . .”

“How would that have happened?”

Hardy paused. “Stier packed the jury,” he said at last. “He let on five guys with daughters. I didn’t have to do anything but play by the rules, and I would have won, or at least maybe not have lost. But I didn’t, and now Moses is dead. Okay, I’m not saying it’s my fault. I did what I was supposed to do and had no control over the outcome. But I had something to do with his death, Frannie, a big something that I’ve got to live with.”

“But you’ve just said it. He would have gotten out and gotten killed anyway. You didn’t do it. Nothing you did made that happen. Moses did it to himself because of what he did. That’s the final truth of it all. It breaks my heart, Diz, it really does. And I loved him, but that’s who he was. Aren’t you the one who always says that character is fate?”

“That was André Malraux, but I’ve been known to quote him from time to time.”

“Well?”

“Well, yes,” Hardy said. “Turns out he was right.”

T
HEY PUT
B
RITTANY
up at the newly renovated Hotel Bel-Air.

The whole thing felt surreal, but every step of the process had proved legit. The men and women with whom she was dealing weren’t a bunch of flakes.

Daniel, a perfect gentleman, thirty-two years old, married with two children, had come up to San Francisco to meet with her mother and make sure everybody was comfortable with everything they were proposing. This was a serious production. A network had picked up the series for the first season, and they wanted a new face to play the part of Ophelia, the damaged femme fatale. Daniel, remembering the tabloid fodder from the trial days, had sought her out and found her.

Both Brittany and her mother thought that her part read well; there was intelligence in the writing, real drama in the plotting. Yesterday, Daniel had come up to San Francisco again to accompany her on the flight to L.A., then stayed with her in the limo to the hotel, which was every bit as beautiful and serene as she’d imagined it—the swans in the lagoon, for some reason, nearly brought her to tears.

Was she really here doing this?

At nine
A.M.
this morning, the late-September weather perfect, the air soft and scented, they were eating breakfast to the strains of a live harpist on the outside patio when Daniel, in a low-key gesture, half-pointed to a nearby table. Brittany looked over and saw Frances McDormand absorbed in what looked like a script, studying her lines. Brittany, realizing the competition that she would be encountering—real professional actors with years of experience and a lifetime of immersion in acting—suddenly felt an almost overwhelming jab of insecurity.

She brought her napkin to her lips, placed it carefully back on her lap.
“You know, Daniel—” She stopped, shook her head, tried again. “You’re not going to want to hear this.”

“I bet I will. Try me.”

She scanned the patio, taking in the setting. “I’m so grateful for the opportunity that you people are giving me, but I’m not sure I can do this.”

Daniel tilted his head to one side, his expression both sympathetic and amused. “Of course you can. Look at yourself. You belong here.”

“I don’t. I did look at myself this morning.” She brought her hands up to her head. “I mean . . .”

“Your hair?”

She nodded. “My not hair.”

He remained smiling, patient. “Did you happen to notice that every single conversation out here stopped when we showed up? Here’s a hint. That wasn’t because of me.”

“That’s because I look like a freak.”

“Perhaps freakishly lovely. But actually, perfectly lovely.” He leaned in toward her. “Give me your hand.” After he took it, he said, “Can you really not be aware of the perfection of your face? I wish I were a sculptor so I could capture it and have it with me all the time.”

“Now you’re being silly.”

“Not at all,” he said. “Not in the least little bit. If you want to know my opinion, six months from now, half the young women in America will be walking around with their hair cropped, all in homage to you. The Ophelia cut.”

She lowered her gaze, felt some pressure in his grip. All but unconsciously, she returned it.

“Then there’s that other thing,” he said.

“No.” She shook her head again. “Stop.”

“I can’t,” he said. “You’re doing it right now. The sense of vulnerability you project, the wounded innocence. Every man in America is going to want to protect you, be near you, be part of the magic you create without even trying.”

“Now you’re embarrassing me. Really.”

“I don’t mean to. I’m telling you the truth that you can’t seem to see for yourself. But I’ll stop on one condition.”

“Tell me.”

“Give me a real smile.”

He stared, locked in on her eyes, holding her hand, his expression evolving from nearly angry—gradually, gradually, turning to conspiratorial, playful, intimate, playful again. She held her pouty frown as long as she could against this onslaught of easy charm, until finally she broke and her face lit into her stunning smile, accompanied by her lovely, tinkly laugh.

“There you go,” he said. “Beautiful.” In the next instant, Daniel went serious. “So damn beautiful.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. “You’re going to be a star, Brittany, a major star. You don’t have to worry about a thing. It’s all going to work out. And if something does start to go wrong, I’m going to be there to protect you every step of the way.”

A faint undertone, an echoing thrum of dread at these words, tickled somewhere at the furthest edges of Brittany’s consciousness, threatening her smile.

But they were, after all, at the Hotel Bel-Air. The day was soft and sweet; Daniel was powerful and handsome. Brittany was going to be successful and happy.

The harp’s music swelled over the patio, and the minor notes she had almost heard lost themselves in the rhapsodic melody.

Her smile rekindled itself. She brought his hand to her mouth and kissed it chastely. “All right, then,” she said, “I’m going to trust you.”

Books do not get written in a vacuum, and this one is no exception. This one started out to be a different story altogether. Once it became clear to me that I was pursuing a plotline that did not work too well, I began peppering a group of friends and colleagues for their opinions and suggestions about other ideas and concepts that I hoped would grow into a better book.

For their good humor, flexibility, feedback, and patience as I worked through this process, I’d like to thank my agent, Barney Karpfinger; my great friend and collaborator Al Giannini; the brilliant novelist Max Byrd; perennial best man Don Matheson; and writer/lawyer/bon vivant John Poswall. My assistant, Anita Boone, deserves special praise for her daily infusion of optimism into what sometimes must have seemed a slightly uptight environment.

As a non-lawyer writing books with a lot of lawyer stuff and courtroom action, I am doubly indebted to the aforementioned Al Giannini, who serves as my very first “editor” and vets everything from police procedure in San Francisco and environs to the actual ballet (with lyrics) that occurs within the courtroom scenes.

Although we did not speak personally, I would like to acknowledge the contributions of Dr. Robert William Shomer, an expert witness in the field of eyewitness identification, and whose testimony in another (actual) trial was extremely enlightening and informs a significant section of this book. Likewise, a multipart article by Meredith May on sex trafficking, published in the
San Francisco Chronicle,
provided essential background material. George Q. Fong was helpful on the subject of U.S. Marshals and protected witnesses, and the wonderful author and friend Robin Burcell gave me a tremendous boost with critical information on forensic artistry. My friends Dr. John and Lesli Chuck provided an important
plot point that turned out to be critical. Finally, I’d like to thank Daniel J. Simons, professor of visual cognition and human performance at the University of Illinois, for the fascinating video referenced in
The Ophelia Cut
.

Several people have generously contributed to charitable organizations by purchasing the right to name a character in this book. These people and their respective organizations are: Wayne and Leslee Feinstein (Gastric Cancer Fund); Vic Sher (San Francisco Jewish Community Center); and Paul Brady (Yolo County CASA).

For all things cyber—my webpage (
www.johnlescroart.com
), blog, Twitter (
www.twitter.com/johnlescroart
), and Facebook—I’m grateful to Eager Mondays (Andy Jones, Briony Gylgaton, and Mary Stewart). I truly love to hear from my readers, and I invite one and all to stop by any of the sites and join these lively, interesting, and fun conversations.