No answer.
"I talked to her and I asked her, how about that? Last night. And she was asleep when you got home, you're right. Although it wasn't ten thirty, was it? It was after one in the morning. Are you going to tell me she's lying?"
Kensing ran a bluff for about five seconds; then all the air left him in a rush. His shoulders sagged, his head hung down. He stood up and walked over to the sink, out of sight behind Hardy, who didn't turn to keep an eye on him and suddenly felt the hair on his neck stand up. A selection of kitchen knives hung off a magnet strip on the wall back there. Kensing could pull one off and slash with it before Hardy could move a muscle.
He whirled.
His client wasn't even facing him, and Hardy felt a moment of something like shame. Kensing was leaning with his hands on both sides of the sink, staring out the window. He finally spoke in a hoarse whisper. "I've been clean and sober for seven years, Diz. Seven years, a day at a time. You know how long that is?" He chuckled bitterly. "The answer is you don't. Nobody does. So last Tuesday, the man who ruined my marriage and took my kids from me shows up in my unit, and three hours later he's dead. Just dead. An act of God as far as I know. Finally some justice, finally something fair. But then between Carla and Driscoll, there's bedlam in the hospital. Then Ann comes to see me and she's raving, talking about me killing him, and for a minute I actually wonder if I didn't do all I could to keep him alive."
He stopped, ran water into a glass, drank it off, and wiped his mouth with his hand. "Anyway, somehow I made it through the rest of that day, going over to Carla's, trying to find a place for this…this thing that had happened. Then that cop, Bracco, outside at Carla's, and more talk as though somebody had done this to Tim. But then I was gone, free from it, driving home at last. I even got all the way here, parked just up the street a ways. I saw the light on and knew Judith was here."
A deep sigh. "Then I walked down to Harry's and had a drink. A double actually. Scotch and soda. Just sitting there savoring it, the most delicious thing I'd tasted in forever. Then another one, drinking to the good Mr. Markham's health, the beauty of it. God, it was so beautiful." He came back to the table and sat. "Then another one, this one for all the lost nights and my babies and Annie and all the shit I'd taken from her. And a couple more for Parnassus and what my life had turned into, a sham of healing people with minimum care, pretending that I was some paragon of virtue and knowledge. One more because the whole thing's a lie and I'm a fraud. Then the rest because I'm a drunk and a loser and that's all I am. So finally, when I try to order one more, the bartender, God bless him, cuts me off. It's closing time. He'll even give me a lift home if I need it."
"You think he'd remember you?" Hardy asked.
"Without a doubt. But if this gets out, I lose my job. And I won't get another one soon."
Hardy considered it for a while. "You realize this is your alibi for a murder, Eric."
Kensing was adamant. "It can't come out."
A flat gaze of frustration. "Then you better hope Glitsky hasn't talked to Judith."
"If he has, I'll tell him she made a mistake. It wasn't that night."
The rest of the conversation was simpler. It took place in the lobby of the Hall of Justice. Both men had had some time to cool off on their respective rides downtown, although Hardy had come to the unsettling realization that now Judith Cohn had no alibi for the time of Carla's death. But he wasn't going to bring that up to his client, not this morning. He had other, more pressing concerns.
He started the conversation by reminding Kensing that there was no physical evidence tying him either to Markham's death or Carla's. Trials were about evidence. If the prosecutor found herself getting too carried away with motives and possible motives, Hardy told Kensing that he should politely answer the questions. He didn't have to be confrontational. Don't argue. Keep it on point. "And the point, Eric, is to take yourself off the list of viable suspects."
The lecture continued. Hardy once again admonished his client to tell the truth about even the most seemingly damning of situations-between him and Markham, Markham and Ann, him and Parnassus. Tell the whole truth, especially about his trip to the bar on the night of Carla's death. Eric could believe it or not, but the truth was the best friend of the innocent. And further, protecting the secrets of witnesses was precisely what the grand jury was all about.
"You're telling me they don't leak?"
Hardy hated to admit it, but he did. "No. Everything leaks, Eric, from time to time. But the grand jury really doesn't leak often. If you're low-key and explain the situation, don't call undue attention to it, it will flow right by, after which you're not a suspect anymore." He really needed to drive this home. "Why should the grand jury care if you stopped by for a few drinks at a bar after a stressful day? Okay, you're an alcoholic and not supposed to drink-but murder, not alcoholism, is the crime."
Hardy needed to make him understand this crucial point. They were standing off alone by the wall engraved with the names of slain policemen. It was already after 9:00 and Kensing had to be upstairs by 9:30. The volume in the cavernous lobby was picking up with the increased traffic-cops and lawyers and a steady stream of the public, which sometimes did seem vast and unwashed, especially here. Hardy moved a step closer to his client, into his space, backing him against the wall, locking him in his gaze.
"Listen to me, Eric. You're an intelligent man, but right now you are letting fear and lack of focus hurt you. I don't blame you for being worried. It's a scary time, but don't let it blind you to the way you're going to strike those nineteen grand jurors. You're a doctor, an upstanding citizen, a voluntarily cooperative witness in a murder. You can't be a suspect because you simply were not at Carla's when she was shot. You were somewhere else-where that was specifically isn't going to matter. Once the jurors hear that, the psychological advantage is all yours. Where you were when you weren't killing Carla Markham won't even be newsworthy enough to leak, no more than what color tie you're wearing. There's really only one person that gives a shit if you went to that bar and had a drink, and that's you. So don't let the prosecutor in there-Marlene Ash-don't let her paint you as a killer. That's not who you are. In truth, and in fact." Hardy actually poked his finger in Kensing's chest. "Get it inside you. Believe it. Act like it."
But his client still wasn't quite with him. "And you're willing to risk my career over it?"
Hardy considered and answered in a level tone. "If you go up there with something to hide, it's going to be all over you like a stink and the jurors will smell it. And when inevitably it comes out, you've committed perjury, which is a felony. Go up there an innocent man, that's how you'll walk out. If they catch you in a lie, and Glitsky will if you give him time, you're probably indicted. Then you've perjured yourself, you're still a drunk, and maybe a murderer to boot. Where's your career then?"
Marlene Ash had a double agenda but there was no doubt at all about which one she was going to pursue first today. She had Abe Glitsky's prime suspect for a murder at the table next to the podium where she stood. While she respected Clarence Jackman's opinion and the deal they'd both made with Hardy, she didn't for a moment believe that one of the staff doctors in the Parnassus Physicians' Group was in possession of any insider knowledge about bogus billing at the corporate level. So she was going for the murder indictment.
Over the past few days, she'd put in long hours going over printouts of computer files supplied by Parnassus, mostly about Kensing, his estranged wife, and their relationship with Tim Markham. It had been anything but pleasant. Without question, the two men had hated each other. Ironically, Marlene thought, and only from reading one side of the correspondence, Kensing seemed to become bolder and more threatening as the relationship between his ex-wife and Markham flowered. Markham appeared to be bending over backward to give Kensing what he wanted-the subtext being that Kensing would expose them.