Hardy took a moment, then tried again. "You're okay going out with unfinished business like this?" It was a lame attempt at a guilt trip, but Hardy didn't want to let it go.
Restoffer laughed. "You know how many open cases I'm leaving? You don't want to know, but one more isn't going to make any difference, I can tell you that. There's just no percentage in it for me. You might have some luck with a private eye. I could recommend a couple of guys down here."
"Floyd, I need a pro. Someone inside." Maybe sugar would work. Restoffer had access and a history no private detective could approach.
"Can't do it, Hardy. Sorry."
"Okay, Floyd. Thanks for your help anyway."
He was about to hang up, waiting for Restoffer to say goodbye. Instead, the inspector said, "Aren't you going to ask me about the good news?"
"Okay." Hardy played along, although even the bad news was good in a sense – the involvement of supervisors and police chiefs was corroboration that it wasn't all a chimera. Something was getting covered up. "What's the good news?"
"The good news is that last night I think this whole thing stinks, so I did some research of my own this morning. Downtown we've got lists some guys in White Collars use for whatever they do, you know? It's all public record, although sometimes it's a little hard to get access to. Contributors to various causes, that type of thing. I thought I'd check the list of Supervisor Kelso's contributors against the Yerba Buena Board and see if I found anybody who might feel comfortable leaning on our good supervisor for a favor or two. Guess what?"
"You found one."
Hardy could almost see him nod. "Margaret Morency. San Marino old money and lots of it."
"She called Kelso?"
"I can't prove it, but it's a safe bet."
"Can you go to your deputy chief and tell him about it? Seems like this takes it out of the fishing department."
"Not enough, Hardy." Restoffer was off the case and he was clear about that – he wasn't going to jeopardize his retirement with his last months on the job. Hardy was grateful, taking what he could get – at least the man was helping. "This only looks like something if you're already disposed to see it," Restoffer was saying. "I've got nothing hard at all, nothing to connect the dots."
"Do you know anything about this Morency woman?"
"Nothing. She's probably on ten boards – that's what these people do, isn't it? Sit on boards, keep the money in the family, take a small stipend – say, my salary – for their efforts. And the rich stay rich. Hey, listen to me. I'm four months from life by a lake in Montana in a cabin that's paid for. Get out of this zoo for good, so what am I bitching about?"
"Sounds great."
"It will be, believe me. The first year I don't think I'll do anything but paint. I haven't painted since I was a kid. I used to love it, then I ran out of time to do it."
"I used to make things out of wood," Hardy said. "No nails."
There was a silence, then: "Life, huh?" Restoffer said. "Anyway, I thought I'd give you what I found, see if you get lucky."
"Well, I appreciate it, Floyd, I really do."
"Listen, if you get so you're closing in on this one, I'm here."
"Got you."
"Later."
44
Hardy climbed the Hall of Justice steps. It had turned cold overnight and the morning sun shone bleakly, as though through a gauze, just enough to cast its long shadows.
He had never believed he would miss David Freeman, but the schlumpy, gruff, arrogant presence would have been welcome now. He entered the building, passed the metal detector and went downstairs to the cafeteria, not yet mobbed as it would be later. He ordered a cup of coffee, went to a table and opened his briefcase, taking out a fresh yellow legal pad and a black pen.
It was 7:40 and the penalty phase was to begin at 9:30.
He had wrestled with his options for an hour before talking to Floyd Restoffer, and in the end had decided that time had simply run out to pursue things on his own down in Los Angeles. If it absolutely came to that, he would, but meanwhile he had a defense to conduct – Jennifer Witt would be sentenced to death unless he had some reasonably effective argument that she should not be.
And, of course, he couldn't use his best one.
But the penalty phase of the trial gave him more leeway than Freeman had had. The guilt phase was interested in the weight of evidence, in proof, in determination of the facts. By contrast, the penalty phase explicitly contemplated – indeed mandated – the introduction of factors that might persuade a jury of the defendant's mitigating human qualities. So Hardy could bring up those things about Jennifer – her life as a wife with her husband, what a good mother she had been. He could talk about her childhood, her friends, even her pets. His problem was that over the past week, at the rate of a couple of hours with Jennifer every day, he hadn't discovered much more about her life than he'd already known, and he suspected that not much of Jennifer's life story – the part he could tell – was going to move the jury to empathy.
Larry Witt had not allowed her to make or keep any friends, and she had acquiesced. She wasn't even allowed to be involved in Matt's school life. She didn't visit her parents or her brother. There were no pets. Those few times they went out to dinner, or to one of Larry's social engagements, she played the role of an aloof beauty, the wife as a trophy.
She insisted on denying the terrible reality that she had been found guilty. Hardy hammered over and over the fact that from the jury's perspective she was a multiple murderer. This was a hard truth but it was the truth. She avoided it, as she had so many other hard truths in her life.
Finally, they did reach a compromise of sorts. Hardy could bring up what he saw as humanizing issues, in effect pleading for her life as though she were in fact guilty, so long as he left out any reference to Larry beating her. In return, Hardy must continue to bring up alternative theories for the killings; she was not letting go of her idea that this possibility – that someone else had done it – would at least plant enough doubt to keep the jury from voting the death sentence. And no matter her situation and Hardy's dose of reality, she still seemed to cling to the hope that somehow the real killer would be found and she would be entirely cleared.
So, based on the YBMG material, and in the face of David Freeman's warnings, Hardy spent half the night arranging and, he hoped, buttressing the argument that a hit man had killed Larry, and the reasons he had for doing so. To that end he had subpoenaed Ali Singh.
Trying to portray Jennifer as a model of sweetness and light proved to be somewhat more difficult. She just wasn't the girl next door and had never pretended to be. A difficult, moody child, she had grown up a difficult, moody adult – haughty, cool, secretive, self-destructive. That was too often her persona, showing rarely what was beneath it. The jury could not properly consider many of the things she had done since the arrest, but Hardy believed that one way or another they knew as much as he did, and would be unlikely to be able to forget it.
Here was what the jury was working with, Hardy noted down: After killing her husband and son, Jennifer had gone out for a jog, setting up an alibi – her stop at the ATM – that almost had sold them. Then by a clever ruse she had broken out of jail, remained at large for three months, during which she continued an affair with her psychiatrist (so much for the loving wife).
Though the judge had instructed the jury that there was insufficient evidence to convict Jennifer of murdering her first husband, Hardy doubted any member of the jury didn't think she had. They'd no doubt remember that, too, when the time came.
Yes, she was pretty. To some of the men she might even be beautiful, but even that, Hardy suspected, played against her – she seemed by her appearance of aloofness to think she was above it all, including the law. More tears would have helped, but Jennifer fought tears.