The Hearing

'Non-involvement,' Hardy corrected him. 'I was just going down to talk to him at the hospital, get his side of what happened. I did. End of story.'

'So you're not representing him?'

Hardy began to shake his head no, then narrowed his eyes at the old man. 'What happened?' he asked, and the questions continued to tumble out. 'He tried to kill himself, didn't he? He did kill himself? No. Somebody else killed him, didn't they? Tell me it wasn't Glitsky.'

Freeman had to chortle. 'Easy, Diz, easy. He's alive as far as I know. But my trained legal mind can't help but notice that you seem to harbor a little concern for him.'

'Not really that.' A defensive shrug, then he gave it up. 'I came away not exactly convinced that the confession is righteous.'

'In what way?'

'He was in withdrawal and they promised him relief. He would have confessed to killing his mother. Hell, he might have actually killed his mother if they asked him to. In any event, it ought to be on the tape.'

Freeman shook his head knowingly. 'No it won't. No cop is that dumb. They make the promise off camera, then sweat him on it.' He straightened up and sighed heavily. 'Either way, though, whether he did it or not, the boy's got worse problems than he had this morning.'

'That'd take some doing.'

'Well, listen up. Evidently some doing got done.' Freeman filled him in on Sharron Pratt's speech at the Commonwealth Club.

By the end of the recital, Hardy had lowered himself down into a chair opposite the couch. His expression was one of shock and disbelief. He finally managed a word. 'Death?'

Freeman nodded. 'Unequivocally. And the arraignment is tomorrow morning.'

'But Pratt's never even asked for specials before.'

'She is now. She called it a sea change in her policy. Get tough, get votes.'

Hardy still couldn't imagine it. 'But he has no priors. They'd never ask for death on a guy with no record.' Freeman had no reply, but Hardy kept arguing. 'Death isn't possible for any number-'

'It is if she can prove first degree with specials.'

'But she can never hope to get a jury to do that. Even if he did kill Elaine, he was drunk or stoned or both at the time. Everybody admits that, even the cops. So you got a guy with no priors and serious psychiatric and substance issues. They don't get death. It's just not do-able.'

'Maybe not, assuming he's got a good attorney.' It was getting dark outside and the room wasn't bright, but Freeman's eyes shone in the dimness.

'Don't give me that look, David.'

All innocence, Freeman spread his hands. 'No look,' he said.

'I didn't say he didn't do it.' Hardy filled his lungs and let out the air in a whoosh. 'I said I thought his confession might have been coerced. That's not saying he didn't do it. There's a lot of other evidence.'

'I'm sure there is.' Freeman waited, his basset eyes un-moving. 'But the death penalty?'

'She can't go there,' Hardy said calmly. 'That's just flat wrong.'

'I thought you might feel that way.' The old man's poker face gave nothing away – even his eyes had gone flat. 'You don't want the case, I'm on it. But you're already there, he thinks he's your client. You've successfully defended death penalty cases before. You hate Pratt and everything she stands for, especially this decision.'

Hardy stood up abruptly, walked over to his desk, tapped

it a few times with his knuckles, then turned back to face the old man. 'So what am I going to do?'

Freeman nodded. 'I guess that's what I came up here to find out.'

9

Glitsky left the office early, carrying the videotape that contained the Burgess confession tucked into the inside pocket of his heavy shepherd's jacket. Back home, at a few minutes after five, he walked purposefully through the kitchen and down the hallway to the room on the left that had until recently been Orel and Jacob's bedroom. Now Jacob was nineteen and living in Milan, the half-black cop's son actually getting small parts as an operatic baritone. Isaac, Abe's eldest boy, had left the home too. He was now a senior at UCLA, majoring in economics, pulling down a straight A average. Orel had moved down the hall to Isaac's old room.

He walked the few steps over to the VCR, punched the power button, pulled the videotape from his pocket. Suddenly some sense of the place stopped him. His shoulders settled imperceptibly. He laid the tape on top of the television, raised his eyes to glance around the room.

He closed his eyes, feeling it the way it was only yesterday, though that was four years ago. The two boys had their bunk beds against that wall where the couch was now. And here, at the oak entertainment center, had been the pair of back-to-back desks where they did homework and piled their stuff. There had been junk everywhere – hockey sticks and football pads, every type of ball in the known world, sports and music posters all over the walls. The ineradicable smell, the incessant noise. Isaac still at home, his room down the hall. The growing boys filling every speck of the place with life, with potential.

And Flo. Flo singing in the kitchen or humming quietly at the living-room table where she did the bills. She was always singing or humming. She'd had a beautiful voice, a deep and rich contralto. Glitsky was sure that was where Jacob got his. His wife hadn't really been much of a softie, but she had loved melodic ballads, show tunes – 'Over the Rainbow', 'Till There Was You', 'The Rose'. Her favorite song from the day he'd met her was 'Unchained Melody'. It was as though the song were part of her very being. She'd be combing her hair, unaware that she was singing, and Abe would stop whatever he was doing, caught in it.

He made it a point to keep his guard up, but now, somehow, it had fallen. Standing there in his boys' old bedroom, inside a memory he never consciously decided to dredge up, he started to allow himself to hear her singing it once again.

Oh, my love, my darling…

The room came up at him. He put a hand to his eyes. 'Lord,' he whispered.

Blind-sided, he found himself over on the couch, wondering what had hit him. At the same time knowing what it was. Finally amazed in some way that these bouts occurred as infrequently as they did.

It was Elaine's death, he decided. Stirring up all the other gunk.

That, and the Treya Ghent interview this morning. That still nagged at him too – not only the lack of any tangible result about the Burgess case, but the reaction he'd had to her.

The door to his office.

The foolish, immature way he'd handled the visit from Hardy, who deserved better than that.

He wasn't under constant attack here at home. He couldn't be seen, didn't have to work so hard to hide whatever might be troubling him. So all of it – Flo and the older kids being gone, Elaine, everything – all of it had bubbled over for a minute. Here, where it was safe. That was all it had been.

OK, now he had himself back under control. He was in his TV room. It wasn't some loaded mnemonic weapon. It was four walls, a window, door and closet, some inexpensive, durable new furniture. In three steps, he was back at the VCR, where he inserted the tape and turned on the television.

Frannie reached Hardy before he'd left the office. She'd heard of a great new restaurant that they needed to try and she'd been able to get last-minute reservations. So instead of the Shamrock, for their date could he meet her at the Redwood Room in the Clift Hotel?

Since this was less than a dozen blocks from where he worked, he told her he thought it might be possible. 'No promises, but a pretty good chance.'

'Well, I shall arrive in ribbons and curls at seven sharp,' she said in her most cultured high-British tones. 'If you're not there to meet me, someone else will ask for my company and I expect I'll have to go off with another escort.'

'I expect you would,' he replied drily.

'It's the great curse of a certain superficial charm, the swarms of men.'

'I can only imagine.'

'Though one's heart is set on one's husband.'

'Of course. He shall then redouble his efforts to be prompt.'

'In that event, sir, I shall reward those efforts.'

'One's heart soars at the possibilities. Until then, then?'

'Until then. Ciao.'

Smiling, he put the receiver in its cradle.

He hadn't moved a muscle when the phone rang again. He snatched it back up – 'Dismas Hardy' – and Glitsky was on the line, speaking without preamble. 'What are you doing?'

'Just a moment, let me check. I seem to be talking on the telephone.'

'Are you going to be there for a while?'

'I'm meeting Frannie in an hour and a half.'

‘That's enough time.'

'For what?'

'To see the Burgess tape.'

Hardy sat forward, his hands suddenly tight around the receiver. 'What about it?'

'I brought it home. Just watched it through for the first time. Compared it to the initial incident reports. I thought you'd like to take a look at what I've got.'

This was highly unusual. Hardy and Glitsky might be friends, but the police did not make evidence available to defense attorneys. That role – called discovery – was the exclusive providence of the District Attorney. But Hardy wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. 'The video of the confession?' he said. 'You could probably talk me into it.'

There was an emptiness in the line, then Glitsky cleared his throat. 'I also wanted to apologize.'

'All right. If that was it, it's accepted. You should know that I've got a few questions of my own.'

Glitsky responded with a long silence. Then, 'I can be there in a half hour.'