The Hearing

It hurt her anew, but there was no avoiding that. Her worried gaze fell on her son, came back to Hardy. 'Of course, sure, I understand.'

But she didn't move until he prompted her. 'Just knock at the door and the guard will come and let you out. We won't be too long.'

'She's all right, really,' Cole said when the door had closed behind his mother. 'She's trying to help.'

But now, suddenly, with the innocent mother out of the room, Hardy abruptly abandoned chit-chat mode. He might have wanted to spare some of her feelings, but he felt no similar compunction toward her son. Moving down to the foot of the bed, he rested his hands on the railing, looked Cole hard in the face, spoke with a flat deliberateness. 'Tell me what happened the other night.'

The change in tone met its mark. The young man inhaled sharply, shifted his eyes from side to side, finally focused on the sheet in front of him. 'It was bad.'

Hardy gave it a second, then reached over and slapped the bed next to Cole's foot.

Startled, Cole looked up. Hardy's expression made him take another deep breath, which he let out slowly through puffed cheeks. 'I mean, I was in bad shape. It was cold as hell, man. I remember that. I hadn't scored all day.'

'Why not?'

'I had to get some money. I thought I might go and hit up Mom, but then,' he sighed again, 'then the cramps started to come on, so I didn't want to go all the way out where she lives.'

'Where's that?'

'Like Judah, out in the Sunset. I score at Sixteenth and Mission. It was too far.'

'So you decided to mug somebody instead?'

'No! It wasn't like that.' Hardy gave him no reaction so he felt pressed to explain further. 'Look, my last score must've been heavily cut, OK? I mean, I was shaking already, cramping up, you know? It was like midnight. I'd scored a couple of pills but they weren't doing it. I had to do something.'

Hardy waited.

'So I lucked out. One of the bums was crashed with his cart-'

'His cart?'

'Shopping cart. In this spot, I don't know exactly where, south of Mission I think. Anyway, he was passed out and had most of a whole bottle of bourbon by his head, just lying there. So I lifted it. I needed something, you know?'

'He let you take his whiskey?'

'No, he was out already. I lifted it.'

'You didn't hit him and take it?'

'Come on.' Cole actually appeared offended at the question. 'Nothing like that.'

'How about the gun? Did you threaten him with that?'

'I didn't have any gun.' His brow darkened for a minute. 'Not then.'

'Did you get it from him, too?'

'No.' Then, 'I don't think so.'

'You don't think so,' Hardy repeated. But he had no choice but to accept it for now. 'All right, then what?'

'Then I guess I drank most of it. The bottle.'

'Where were you then?'

A shrug. 'Just around. I don't know. I was hurtin'. I mean, hurtin' you hear me?'

'For the record, Cole, you're not breaking my heart. How'd you get up to Maiden Lane?'

But the lack of sympathy had its price. 'I don't know, man. Maybe I levitated, huh? Maybe I took the Monorail.'

Hardy straightened up. 'You think this is funny, huh? You're looking at the rest of your life behind bars and you're getting wise with me?'

'Hey.' Cole went to hold up his hands in a gesture of innocence. The handcuff on his left wrist brought him up short. 'I'm just saying I don't remember getting uptown. I drank the booze. I got loaded. I walked around, tried to keep warm. Maybe I'd run into somebody I knew, I don't know. Maybe score some g.'

'G?'

'God. Smack. You know, heroin.'

'And pay for it with what?'

Cole shook his head miserably. 'I don't know. It didn't happen anyway.'

'So what did happen? Did you see Elaine come out of some building? Or just walking alone? What?'

'Elaine?'

Hardy's temper flared. 'Elaine Wager,' he snapped, but then checked himself, got his voice under control. 'The woman you've confessed to killing. Elaine Wager.'

'What about her?'

'I asked when you first saw her.'

'I don't really remember, you know? I told the cops this.'

'Why don't you just tell me, too? What's the first thing you do remember?'

'The gun. In my hand.' Cole made eye contact. 'Like, there it was.'

'Where?'

'Well, I mean it was there on the street and I picked it up. Anybody'll give you money for a gun, right?'

'So you remember picking up the gun? And then what?'

He closed his eyes, shook his head. 'I've been through this already. Then I guess leaning over her.'

'You guess? What do you mean, you guess? Did you see her walking? Did you come up behind her? Or was she already on the ground?'

Cole's face was taut with the effort at recall. 'I must have blanked it.'

'What does that mean, you must have blanked it? Are you saying you blanked on pulling the trigger?'

As though trapped in a cage, the young man looked from side to side for an exit. 'Well, I mean I had the gun, then I was leaning over her and saw all the gold, the necklace, then her purse and the other stuff.'

Hardy's hands were white on the bed's railing. 'You don't remember firing the gun?'

'No.'

'Ever?'

Cole gave it some thought, then shook his head no. 'But the cop said it was common, blanking the moment. Like people in car wrecks don't remember the last minute before.'

'What cop?'

'The guy who questioned me. Black dude. Banks, I think his name was.'

Hardy tore his eyes from the pathetic young man and looked through the barred window to the gray afternoon outside. Traffic was stopped in both directions on the freeway. Rows of box-like apartment buildings clung to a dun-colored hill. He wasn't going to find any solace in the view and after Cole's last words, he needed some. 'But, Cole,' he began quietly, 'listen to me. You confessed to killing her.'

He nodded. 'Yeah.'

'But you don't remember stalking her? Firing the gun?'

'No, none of that. But I must have.'

'Why do you say that?'

Cole stared down at the sheet covering him. 'I shot the gun. They tested my hands. I shot the gun.' He brought his eyes up to Hardy. 'So I must have done it. And by then I couldn't hold out any more anyway.'

'Hold out on what?'

This got an exasperated rise out of him. 'Hey, come on, what are we talking about?'

'Elaine Wager's death, Cole. How about that?'

But he was shaking his head. 'No, man. We're talking g. They got me in that room and I'm coming down hard. I'm dying! You understand? Then Banks tells me he'll see he gets me something as soon as I say I did it. So I told him.'

'That you killed her?'

'Yeah.' He shrugged. 'But hell, I would have told him I'd shot Kennedy if that's what he wanted to hear.'

The Chief Assistant District Attorney of the City and County of San Francisco did not have a big office. In fact, Gabriel Torrey's office was the same size as the other third floor offices which were shared two to a room by the rank and file assistant DAs. The big difference was in the furnishings – a sofa and matching armchairs of exquisitely soft leather, built-in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, plantation shutters, twin original Tiffany lamps, a Persian rug over the hardwood floor Torrey had installed. And, of course, there was also the desk – a large, custom crafted, beautifully finished cross-section of redwood burl from an old-growth stand of trees that had been clear cut in the late 1970s.

The desk had been a gift to Torrey from the CEO of Pac-Ore Timber. In those days, Torrey was a young attorney working as a lobbyist in Washington, DC, representing whatever clients were willing to pay him back then, regardless of their political agenda. The provenance of the Desk was old news by now – it was simply the stunning centerpiece of an intimidating workspace. The old-time DAs, a handful of old white guys who remained from past administrations, remembered the office from the days when Art Drysdale had been the Chief ADA. Back then it had been just like their own – a mess. Battered green files, sagging metal bookshelves that held binders full of active cases, a cork bulletin board, one wall-mounted six-foot length of two-by-four that held Art's baseball memorabilia.