‘Maybe you could let it creep back just a little, give us young guys a chance.’
Andy lined up another imaginary putt and put the ball in the hole. He looked up, grinning. ‘No quarter,’ he said. To the victor goes the spoils.‘
19
Hardy had had better weekends.
Historical Martinez turned out to be a bit of a dud. Since Moses and Hardy had practically lived at the Little Shamrock bar on 9th and Lincoln in San Francisco’s cool and breezy Sunset district for many years, an hour-and-a-half road trip to check out some small bars in another windy town was, at best, they decided, dumb.
They snagged a few not-so-elusive martinis – the gin first nagging at Hardy, then washing out the memory of the morning’s disaster with May Shinn and lawyer David Freeman – then Frannie had driven them all home just in time to find out Rebecca had developed roseola and a fever of 106 degrees, which was worth a trip to the emergency room.
When they got back at midnight Hardy had been too exhausted to return the calls of Art Drysdale or Abe Glitsky.
But on Sunday he wasn’t. He got an earful of rebuke from Art and was intrigued to learn from Glitsky, who’d worked yesterday, that Tom Waddell, the night guard at the Marina, had seen May leaving the place on Thursday night.
‘Probably coming back, realizing she’d left the gun.’
‘Did she have a key?’
‘That’s just it. It appeared she couldn’t get into the boat. Waddell was going to go help her when he finished whatever he was doing, but she had gone. Maybe that’s when she decided to buy the ticket to Japan. The timing fits.’
Hardy remembered that when he’d first gone to the Eloise, the boat had been left unlocked. May, knowing that, would have thought she could have just slipped aboard, taken the gun and disappeared with nothing left to link her to the murder.
‘And there’s another thing, maybe nothing, maybe a joke, but it could be the whole ballgame.’
Hardy waited.
‘I got a warrant for her suitcases and we found what looks like a handwritten will of Owen Nash’s, leaving her two million dollars.’
‘Is it real?’
‘We don’t know, we’re getting a sample of Nash’s handwriting. We haven’t even mentioned it to her yet, but let’s assume Nash just disappears and his body doesn’t show up on a beach. After he’s declared dead, May appears with a valid will.’
‘Nice retirement.’
‘The same thought occurred to me.’ A good cop following up leads, building a case that Hardy hoped he hadn’t already lost on a technicality.
Hardy spent most of the day inside worrying about Rebecca, giving her tepid baths every two or three hours. Frannie, as she did, hung tough, but he could tell it was a strain on her, to say nothing of his own feelings, memories of another life and another baby -one who hadn’t made it – chilling the warmth out of the evening.
A dinner of leftovers – cold spaghetti, soggy salad, stale bread. They were all in bed for the night before nine o’clock.
Family life with sick child.
‘Excuse me,’ Pullios said, ‘there is no issue here.’
‘Then I will take the folder and leave.’ It was nine-thirty on Monday morning and Hardy was, for the second time in a week, in District Attorney Christopher Locke’s sanctum sanctorum. With him, in the second chair before the D.A.‘s desk, was Elizabeth Pullios and, standing by the window, his back turned to the proceedings, Art Drysdale.
Pullios remained calm. ‘I am the homicide prosecutor here. What’s the issue?’
‘The issue is Art promised me this case.’ Hardy knew it sounded whiny, but it was the truth and had to be said.
‘Art was out of line there, Hardy.’ Locke could smile very nicely for the cameras, but he was not smiling now. He leaned forward, hands clasped before him. ‘Now, you listen. I appreciate your enthusiasm for your work, but we work in a hierarchy and a bureaucracy’ – he held up a hand, stopping Hardy’s reply. ‘I know, we all hate the word. But it’s a precise term and it applies to this office. Ms Pullios here has a fine record trying murder cases, and on Saturday’ – Locke pointed a finger – ‘you seriously jeopardized this investigation. The accused has an absolute right for an attorney to be present. You’re aware of that?’
‘I didn’t force her to say a word.’ ‘You shouldn’t have been there at all, is the point. Thank God you taped what you did get.’
Pullios swiveled on the leather seat of her chair. ‘Freeman could still make a case for procedural error.’
‘Shit.’ Hardy said.
‘I beg your pardon.’ If anyone was going to swear in Locke’s office, it was going to be him.
Hardy reflected on the better part of valor. ‘I don’t think he can make a case there.’
‘Regardless’ – Pullios was calm but firm – ’this should not be up for debate. I am a Homicide D.A., is that right, sir?‘
‘Of course.’
‘Art?’
‘Come on, Elizabeth.’
‘So I went up to Homicide and picked up a folder from Abe Glitsky, as I have done many times in the past. It happened, randomly, to be this Nash murder. There is a suspect in custody at this very moment, who was arrested while attempting to flee the jurisdiction. This is the kind of case I do.’ She wasn’t yelling. She didn’t even seem particularly excited. She had the cards.
Hardy gave it a last shot. ‘Elizabeth, look. I have put in some time on this thing. I found the hand. I’ve talked to the daughter, the victim’s lawyer and best friend. Now I’m not on the case. What’s that going to do to their confidence in this office?’
‘That’s irrelevant,’ Pullios said.
‘More than that,’ Locke, to whom public perception of the district attorney’s office was always the primary issue, spoke up, ‘it’s not for you two to haggle about. Hardy, you’ve made a small but real point there. I can see you think you’ve got a legitimate right to this case, but so does Elizabeth. So here’s what we do – you, Hardy, take second chair. Under Elizabeth’s direction you keep contact with people you’ve already interviewed and you keep her informed at every step. Every single step. When we bring this thing to trial, Elizabeth puts on the show and you get to watch a master perform close up.’ The D.A. crossed his hands on his desk and favored the room with his patented smile. ‘Now let’s cooperate and get this thing done. We’re on the same team here, as we all sometimes forget. Art, Hardy, thanks for bringing this to my attention. I’ve always got an open door. Thanks very much. Elizabeth, could you stay behind a minute?’
‘Talk about seeing a master perform close up.’
Drysdale was juggling in his office. ‘My good friend Chris Locke tries to make sure everybody wins.’
‘Win, my ass.’
The baseballs kept flying. ‘Pullios tries the case. You’re on it. My authority in giving you the case is upheld. The office looks good. Everybody wins.’
‘Who was it said “Another victory like this and we’re ruined”?’
‘Pyrrhus, I think.’
‘I’ll remember that.’ Hardy shook his head. ‘I can’t believe this. She doesn’t know anything about this case.’
Drysdale disagreed. ‘No, she knows, and I must say with some justification, that once a perp is arrested for whatever it might be, that perp is one guilty son of a bitch.’
‘How about innocent until proven guilty?’ Hardy felt silly even saying it out loud. He wasn’t sure he believed it anymore, after the tide of humanity that had washed across his desk in the past months, all of them – every one – guilty of something, even if it wasn’t what they were accused of. The temptation to get whoever it was for whatever they could, regardless of whether it was something they did, was something all the D.A.s faced. The best of them rose above it. Some didn’t find the exercise worthwhile.