‘I need more phone calls,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t be in here.’
She was not stupid. She was a citizen, and she wasn’t going to fall into the trap that had ensnared her father. She had to believe that there was another reason she was arrested – it was not because she was Japanese. She told Hardy about her attempted call to Ken Farris.
‘I could call Farris for you. He tried to call you several times last week, you know.’
‘I didn’t kill Owen Nash,’ she said.
‘I wouldn’t say anything you didn’t want to hear repeated.’
‘Then why are you here?’
‘I thought you might want to tell me what happened. Maybe we could both get lucky.’
‘What happened when?’
The man shrugged. ‘Last night. The arrest. The last time you saw Owen Nash.’
‘Shouldn’t I have a lawyer?’
‘Absolutely. You have the right to one. You don’t have to say one word to me.’
But she found she wanted to explain, to talk. ‘I’m not sure I even understand why I’m here.’
‘I think trying to leave the country was a bad idea.’
‘But I knew -’ She stopped herself. ‘Don’t you see?’
‘See what?’
She picked her words carefully, slowly. ‘When I saw my name in the paper, I knew I’d be suspected.’
‘Were you out on the boat with him?’
‘No! I told the officer that, the one who arrested me.’
‘Then why would we suspect you?’
‘I’m Japanese.’ No, she told herself. That was her father’s answer. But it was too late to retract it now. ‘And it’s true,’ she said. ‘You do suspect me, with no reason. Who I am, what I have done for a living.’ She knew she should be quiet, wait for an attorney, but she couldn’t. The gun, too.‘
‘Your gun?’
She nodded. ‘I knew it was on the boat. That’s where I left it. I didn’t want it in my apartment. I couldn’t even bring myself to load it. Owen thought I was silly.’
‘So you kept it on the Eloise?’
‘In the desk, by the bed.’
The man frowned, something bothering him. ‘You knew it was there when you went out on Saturday?’
‘Yes, but -’
‘So you did go out on Saturday.’
‘No! I didn’t mean that, I meant when Owen went out. I knew it was there all the time. That’s where I kept it.’
‘Did anyone else know it was there?’
‘Well, Owen, of course.’ There was something else. She paused, not quite saying it. ‘Anyone could have.’
‘Anyone could have,’ he repeated.
‘Yes!’ She was starting to panic, to lose herself, and hoped it didn’t show in her voice. She forced herself to breathe calmly. ‘If it were me, why would I leave the gun on the boat after I shot him? Why wouldn’t I have thrown it overboard?’
‘I don’t know, May. Maybe you were in shock that you’d actually done it and reverted to habit, not thinking, putting the gun where it belonged. Why don’t you tell me?’
‘I loved Owen. I told that to the sergeant.’
‘You loved him.’ Flat, monotone. ‘Nobody else seems to think he was very lovable.’
‘Nobody else knew him.’
‘A lot of people knew him,’ he said.
The door to the room opened with a whoosh. ‘Just what the hell is going on in here?’
Hardy looked, then stood up. ‘Can I help you?’
The man wasn’t six feet tall. He had curly brown hair and sallow loose skin. His shabby dark suit was badly tailored and poorly pressed. There were tiny bloodstains on his white collar from shaving cuts.
Nevertheless, what he lacked in style he made up for in substance. His brown eyes were clear and carried authority. The anger seemed to spark off him. ‘Yeah, you can help me. You can tell me what this is all about!’
Hardy didn’t respond ideally on this onslaught. ‘Maybe you can tell me what it is to you!’
The two men glared at each other. The guard who had admitted the second man was still standing at the door; the woman investigator Hardy had brought along as a witness checked her fingernails. The guard asked, ‘You gentlemen have a problem with each other?’
The shorter man turned. ‘You know who I am?’
‘I don’t,’ Hardy said.
He was ignored. ‘I am representing this woman and she is being harassed by the district attorney -’
‘There is no harassment going on here -’
‘Save it for your appeal, which you’re going to need. To say nothing of the lawsuit.’
‘Who the hell are you?’
‘I’m David Freeman, Ms Shintaka’s attorney, and you don’t belong here.’
Like everyone else in the business of practicing law from either side of the courtroom, Hardy knew of David Freeman, and his presence stopped him momentarily.
Freeman was a legend in the city, a world-class defense attorney in countless cases – and here was Dismas Hardy, novice prosecutor in a place he technically shouldn’t be. He didn’t know how there came to be a connection between May Shinn and David Freeman, but it was clear there was one now and it was hardly promising for Hardy’s chances.
‘How did you -’
Freeman cut him off. ‘Because fortunately for justice’s sake, some judges are available on weekends. Now you get the hell out of here, Counselor, or I swear to God I’ll move to have you disbarred.’
May spoke up. ‘But he wasn’t -’
Freeman held up an imperious hand. ‘Don’t say another word!’
Judge Andy Fowler watched his drive sail down the middle of the fairway, starting low and getting wings up into the clear blue, carrying in the warm, dry air. The ball finally dropped down, he estimated, at about two hundred and ten yards, bouncing and rolling another forty, leaving himself a short seven-iron to the pin.
Fowler picked up his tee with a swipe and walked to his cart, grinning. ‘The man is on his game.’ Gary Smythe was Fowler’s broker and, today, his match partner. They were playing best ball at $20 per hole and now, on the fourteenth, were up $80. Gary wasn’t yet thirty-five, a second-generation member of the Olympic Club.
The other two guys, both members of course, were father and son, Ben and Joe Wyeth from the real estate company of the same name. Ben Wyeth was close to Fowler’s age and looked ten years older. He teed up. ‘I think the judge here ought to rethink his twelve handicap.’ He swung and hit a decent drive out about two hundred yards with the roll, on the right side of the fairway. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is a proper drive for guys our age, Andy.’
They got in their carts and headed down the fairway. ‘You are playing some golf today,’ Gary said.
Andy was sucking on his tee. He wore a white baseball hat with a marlin on the crest, maroon slacks, a polo shirt. He followed the flight of a flock of swallows into one of the eucalyptus groves bordering the fairway. ‘I think golf must be God’s game,’ he said. ‘You get a day like this.’
‘If this is God’s game, he’s a sadist.’ Gary stopped the cart and got out to pick up his ball. As had been the case most of the afternoon, Andy’s ball was best.
Andy put his shot pin high, four feet to its left. Gary’s shot landed on the front fringe, bounced and almost hit the flagstick, then rolled twelve feet past. ‘Your ball again,’ Gary said.
As they waited on the green for Ben and Joe, Gary told Andy he was happy to see him feeling better. ‘Some of us were worried the last few months,’ he said. ‘You didn’t seem your old self.’
‘Ah, old man’s worries, that’s all.’ Andy lined up an imaginary putt. ‘You get lazy. You get a few problems, no worse than everybody else has, and you forget you can just take some action and make them go away. It’s just like golf, you sit too long and stare at that ball, pretty soon it’s making faces at you, and before you know it, hitting that ball becomes clean impossible. The thing to do is just take your shot. Let the chips fall. Pardon the mixed metaphor. At least then the game’s not playing you. Which is what I let creep up on me.’