But what else could he do?
"The problem is, I don't really have anybody else," Hardy was saying. "Carla-the jealous wife-might have been a good bet, but she went dead on me."
Freeman clucked. "That is inconvenient."
"And then I really thought I had something with the other guy who'd died at the same time as Markham-Lector. But Strout says no, so now I'm wondering if I should even have Wes Farrell bother to try to get permission for Loring's autopsy."
"Who was there?" Freeman got the door to the Nob Hill Cigar and held it open for Hardy. Immediately, they were both gripped in the thick, humid, fragrant embrace of one of the city's most anachronistic destinations. Freeman, observing the ritual he performed every time he bought his cigars in bulk, didn't so much as glance at the display downstairs, but led the way upstairs. Hardy tagged along. It was pretty much a Victorian men's club, and while of course women were legally permitted, in a dozen or more visits Hardy had never seen one here.
After a few minutes of cigar chitchat with Martin, their host, they found their way to a couple of leather easy chairs with their complimentary snifters of cognac-not for sale, not even legally consumable on the premises, but always offered nonetheless. Martin reappeared in a moment, offered and lit their Cohibas, then retired back downstairs to fill Freeman's order.
Another important element of David's own individualistic ritual was to savor only and not talk until the first ash was ready to fall. Sometimes this could take ten minutes. But Hardy found that today, although he'd come specifically to pick the old man's brain, he was happy to sit and reflect.
The rest of the weekend in Monterey had been sublime. Hardy had always responded to the magic of things nautical, and the aquarium seemed to restore something in his soul, in his connection to his children, his wife. Suddenly he was more than what he did for a living. All the flotsam and jetsam of who he was got stirred, shaken. It woke him up.
In the afternoon, he bought some swim trunks and they'd gone to the beach, explored the tide pools, screamed with joy and madness at the freezing water. They'd eaten splendidly at The Old House, walked out on the wharf by moonlight, and fed the seals. Back at their hotel, they had managed to upgrade the single room Frannie and the kids had stayed in the night before to a suite, and with the children sleeping soundly behind the connecting door and a little privacy, they'd made love twice-night and morning, like newlyweds.
Up here in the smoking room, Freeman tapped his ash. "So who was there?" he asked. "I believe that's where we were."
Of course he was right. Hardy rarely even marveled at it anymore. But he still had the same answer as last time, which was a question of his own. "Where, David?"
"At the hospital. You've told me you need people with a motive to have killed Markham, but you don't know of anyone else except your client, so all right, let's assume for the moment that it's not him, although that continues to make me uncomfortable as hell, except still, what you need, even beyond motive, is presence, by which I mean that whoever it was had to be there and that brings us back around full circle."
"I'll give you a dollar if you can diagram that last sentence for me."
Freeman briefly attempted to glare, but the charade didn't hold, so he sipped some cognac and sucked on his cigar. "Occasionally," he said, "the gift of wisdom arrives untidily packed."
When Hardy got back to the office, it was after four o'clock. The alcohol had slowed him down while the nicotine had jolted him up. He went to his windows and flung them both wide open, then got himself a large glass of water and sat down behind his desk. In his absence, he had had three phone calls.
The first was from Jeff Elliot, who wanted to know what, if any, progress Hardy had made on the Kensing front. He was working on another Parnassus column and maybe they had some mutually beneficial information they could share.
In the second message, Wes Farrell was calling to let him know that he'd finally persuaded the Lorings to let authorities dig up their mother. Now he was meeting some pretty strong resistance from Strout, with whom he thought Hardy had already cleared it. What was going on?
The third call, at last, was from his client, whom he'd been trying to reach all day. He called him back first and Kensing started off by telling Hardy that he still had the kids after the fight with his wife…
"Wait a minute, Eric. Back up. What fight with your wife?"
He explained what had happened in some detail, following up with Glitsky's unexpected visit to his house last night. "I got the impression he thinks I went over there to hurt her. Maybe worse."
Hardy remembered Glitsky's prediction that Kensing would do just that. "But you didn't talk to him again. Please say you didn't."
"No. I didn't let him in. But I thought I'd make myself scarce today."
"Probably a good idea. What'd you do?"
After he'd dropped the kids at their school, Kensing decided to really take the day off, think a little, get some kind of plan. He'd walked across the Golden Gate Bridge and back, driven downtown and eaten dim sum in Chinatown, taken in a movie, then gone back for the kids at school. He'd also just talked to Ann. She was out of jail and wanted the kids to return to her house, but he didn't feel good about that. What did Hardy think?
"Do you think she's a danger to them?"
"Before Saturday, I would have said no. But I've never seen her like that, and we've had our share of fights, believe me."
"But nothing physical? You're sure?" This was always a critical point to make. It would be very bad if the grand jury discovered that Kensing had ever used any kind of violence on his wife. Better to know now. "You never hit her, Eric? Not even one time?"
"I'd remember. I never hit her, although she's hit me a few times."
Hardy didn't much like that, either, but for Kensing's purposes, it was better than if he'd hit her. "Okay, then. Exactly what happened Saturday?"
"I guess she must have finally convinced herself that I killed Tim."
"That's what I'd concluded, too. Would you like me to talk to her? Do you think she'd talk to me?"
He heard the relief in Kensing's voice. "That'd be great. Either one."
It wasn't really the answer to his question, but it was clearly permission. Hardy felt free to move on. "Eric, can you tell me who was at the hospital with you last Tuesday?"
"Where? You mean in the ICU?"
"Anywhere near it really."
"Sure. I think so. Me, obviously. The nurses." He continued with the litany, which was more substantial than Hardy had realized. That in turn gave him some hope, although it might also mean a lot of work. He hadn't even heard of all of the players yet, and this struck him as unconscionable.
A new wave of anger at Glitsky swept over him. What the hell was he doing? Maybe he had concluded that Jackman's deal with Hardy wasn't his deal, too, but in fact it was. Jackman's deal meant next to nothing without Glitsky's cooperation.
The thought passed, though the anger did not. But Hardy was taking notes through it all. In addition to Carla, Kensing told him, there had been Malachi Ross, Markham's assistant Brendan Driscoll (whom Kensing seemed to dislike), a couple of nurses, and two other doctors, including Judith Cohn. Hardy found himself wondering again how long Eric's relationship with Cohn had been going on. He would have to try and talk to her.
But first, after he'd hung up with Kensing, there was Ann. She answered her telephone. Yes, of course she'd talk to him, she said. Anytime he wanted. She wanted her children back.