‘And did your mother live there, too, in Eureka?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did she always live there?’
‘Just a second.’ She was gone from the phone and he heard her scolding. ‘No, no, no. Don’t put that in there, Brittany. Mommy will be off in a minute, okay?’
Hardy could relate. Jeanne came back to the phone. ‘I’m sorry, where were we?’
‘Did your mother always live in Eureka?’
‘Mostly. She was born here, then lived in San Francisco for a while, and then moved back. But her name wasn’t Singleterry when she was down there. It was Palmieri, Joan Palmieri. Then back up here she married Ron Singleterry.’
Hardy’s heart sank. ‘But when she lived in San Francisco, your mother’s name was Joan what?’
‘Palmieri.’ Jeanne spelled it. Hardy wrote it on his pad.
‘Do you know a man named Sal Russo?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘Do you remember if your mother ever mentioned him?’
‘Sal Russo?’ She was silent a minute. ‘No, it doesn’t even ring a tiny bell. Was she supposed to know him? Does this mean I don’t get the reward? Brittany, don’t!’
Reward or not, the child was commanding more than half of Jeanne Walsh’s attention. Hardy should let her go and get on his own horse. This, finally, was a definite link to Joan Singleterry and a new name with which to conjure. Palmieri.
He thanked her and told her he’d get back to her, this time unable to entirely suppress the rush of excitement. His hunch was becoming a certainty. He didn’t know the exact mechanism, but Joan Singleterry was going to lead him to Sal Russo’s killer.
36
The whole family pitched in making chili, quesadillas, and tacos. Pico and Angela Morales came by with their three children. Young and old ate together at the same table.
The law went undiscussed.
The kids went down to sleep before eight-thirty, five of them on the floor in Rebecca’s room. When Pico and Angela woke up their clan to go home three hours later, Hardy and Frannie still had some energy and didn’t let it go to waste.
This morning he made his four-mile jog and walk with something approaching ease. The city had turned cold by California standards – the high today would be 55 degrees – so he brought wood up from the cord of oak underneath the house. While Frannie baked bread, he cleaned his fish tank.
With all the domesticity he didn’t arrive at the office until nearly noon. Among his messages was a call from another of the doctors who’d signed the published admission that he’d helped one or more of his patients die.
Hardy could see a groundswell developing here. Yesterday, he’d forgotten to return the padlock key for the storage unit to the city custodian, and he decided to use that as an excuse to go to the Hall.
The door to Glitsky’s office was open. He sat at his desk and appeared to be buried in paperwork. Hardy walked in with his briefcase in one hand and some hot tea in the other, and the lieutenant sat back and graciously accepted the offering. The two men hadn’t talked since the day of the verdict, and Sarah and Graham had not hit the gossip mills yet by then. Now, of course, they had.
Abe carefully sipped at the scalding liquid. ‘Why don’t you get the door?’ he asked conversationally. ‘God, I love the sound of that.’ When they were good and alone, he took another sip. ‘I guess you didn’t know about Evans and your client.’
Hardy kept a straight face. ‘What about them?’
Glitsky moved some paper around. ‘I suppose you thought that if I’d known they were an item, I might have been a little skeptical about her professional opinion regarding his guilt or not. Might not have sent her out to investigate other innocent civilians with my blessing.’
‘George wasn’t all that innocent. Besides, Graham wasn’t guilty. The jury said so.’
The lieutenant went to his tea, decided to say a few more words. ‘She was a good cop. She had to be to get here. But you don’t sleep with your suspects.’
‘I never have, but I’d agree it’s good advice.’
Glitsky nodded again. This was pointless. What happened between Evans and Graham Russo hadn’t been Hardy’s doing. It was galling that Hardy had possibly – hell, probably; hell, definitely - known all about it for months and hadn’t mentioned a thing to Glitsky.
But then Glitsky realized that a part of it, perhaps the biggest part, was his own fault. It wasn’t Hardy who’d cut off the communication they’d always had – it was himself. He sipped more tea, settled back into his chair. ‘And this visit today is about?’
‘I honestly thought you’d never ask.’
‘Surprise,’ Glitsky said. ‘It’s a cop tool.’
‘Hey, that reminds me. Knock, knock.’
Glitsky shook his head. ‘No.’
‘No, really, come on. Humor me. One time. Knock, knock.’
Glitsky hesitated another second. There was no getting around Hardy. He’d just sit there with his shit-eating grin and keep repeating ‘Knock, knock’ until he got an answer. He growled it out. ‘All right, Jesus, who’s there?’
‘Interrupting cow.’
‘Interrupting co-’
‘Mooo!’
In a major victory for the defense Hardy got Glitsky to crack a tenth of a smile. ‘All right,’ the lieutenant said, ‘that wasn’t bad. I see you’re playing with your kids again. How are they? I ought to bring Orel by.’
Actually, with the trial over now and the first hectic weeks of school out of the way, his kids were giving him a period of joy. Last night, good as it had been, was becoming almost typical. Vincent actually preferred that Hardy tuck him in nowadays rather than Frannie, and miraculously, he’d been home a lot of nights to do just that. It seemed to make a difference to the boy, Dad being around with some regularity. Rebecca continued to be his darling.
‘Anytime,’ Hardy said. ‘They love Orel. But now, to the singular purpose of this particular business call.’ He grabbed his briefcase and pulled it up to his lap, unsnapping the clips. It was the first time he’d opened it since he’d left Graham and Sarah in the parking lot yesterday afternoon.
He couldn’t help laughing. Somehow – probably while Hardy was busy helping with loading the boxes yesterday in the parking lot – Graham had slipped Sal’s belt into his briefcase.
‘What?’ Glitsky sat forward in his chair, wanting to know. Hardy was just a bundle of laughs today. It wasn’t natural.
He pulled it out. ‘Among the contents of Sal Russo’s safe.’
‘What is it?’
‘It’s a belt, Abe. What’s it look like?’
‘In Sal Russo’s safe?’
Hardy nodded. ‘We just got it out of the evidence lockup yesterday.’
‘What’s it doing in your briefcase?’
Hardy avoided that. ‘You wouldn’t believe the stuff I accumulate in here.’
Glitsky held out his hand. Hardy stood and passed the belt over the desk. ‘You want it?’ he asked, keeping the joke running. ‘Maybe it’ll fit you.’
The lieutenant wasn’t smiling. ‘What was this evidence of?’
‘Nothing. We never used it.’
‘Though of course you checked it out?’
Hardy cocked his head. Suddenly Glitsky was interested and that made him interested. ‘Of course. Before they tool belts they call them blanks. This is one of them. Anyway, there’s no tannery mark, except that E-2 punch in the back. Nobody I talked to knew what that stood for, not even Freeman, and Freeman knows everything. Best we could come up with was a friend of Sal’s was going to make him a belt and the old man picked out the blank, then the other guy never got around to it.’ Glitsky stared across at him. The scar had gone pale across his lips, a sign of tension. ‘It might not be anything,’ he said, ‘but North Beach Station – all their stuff, they punch E-something on it, just like this. North Beach Station is E-2.’