Knowing what he'd find, he got back out of the car and walked around to where the broken glass covered the sidewalk, crunching under his feet. He opened the door and peered over the backseat into the storage area in the back and verified that they'd not only taken the skis, but the poles and boots and luggage bag they used for the rest of their stuff- gloves, goggles, extra clothes, everything. The deck was bare, cleaned out.
Sick at the world, he got back in behind the wheel, started the engine, put on his lights and pulled out into the still-dark street.
Wu wore a dark blue jogging suit and tennis shoes, a black and orange Giants warm-up jacket, no makeup. Her hair was back in a ponytail. Hardy thought she could have passed for about Andrew's age. "… because it's my fault, that's why," she was saying.
"How could it be your fault?" Hardy had had enough of hospitals over the weekend with Frannie to never want to see one again, and yet here he was now, outside the emergency room at SFGH, aptly nicknamed the San Francisco Gun & Rifle Club by the law community. He and Wu sat on red molded-plastic chairs and he was drinking vending machine coffee from a paper cup.
"I spent almost all day yesterday with him, going over the criteria, ways we might be able to beat them. It wasn't too heartening. By the time I left, he was pretty down."
"Did you tell him about our plan to call witnesses on the crime itself?"
She nodded. "Sure, but by that time we're on number five. He figured we couldn't win on any of the first four, either, not after his short story got out. So he was going up, that was his opinion. We couldn't do anything to stop that." She hung her head wearily, came back up to Hardy. "I keep thinking if only I wouldn't have gone in to talk to him, it wouldn't have come to this. But what was I supposed to do? Who else except Andrew could have…?"
A young Asian woman in bloodstained blue scrubs and a stethoscope was approaching them. Wu stopped talking and they both stood up.
"The officer who brought him in told me you were with the hanging victim," she said. "He's going to have trouble talking for a while, and he'll be in some discomfort, but fortunately whatever he used- evidently his shirt- couldn't hold him and the fall didn't break his neck. He's going to live. The officers want to take him back to the YGC, but I told him we're going to hold him here for observation for at least a day."
"Thank you," Hardy said. "Under the circumstances, I'd make it a close watch."
"We will," the doctor said. "Do you know where his parents are, by the way? Does he have parents?"
"They're in Palm Springs, I believe. At a tennis tournament," Wu said. Then, including Hardy: "But I'm concerned about his sister. The YGC called his home first and there was no answer at all. They called me next."
"So no parents," the doctor said. "And people wonder where kids go wrong." The young woman's face was set in frustration.
"Can we talk to him?" Hardy asked.
She shook her head no. "He can't really talk. Also, I've got him sedated for now. He'll be out for a couple of hours. And he really won't be able to talk normally for at least a few days." A pause, then a gentler tone. "Do you know why he might have tried to do this?"
"He's got a hearing coming up soon," Wu said. "He thinks he's looking at years in prison."
The doctor nodded. "What did he do?"
"The charge is murder," Wu said. "But there are questions."
This was the first time Hardy had heard Wu say something like that, and he shot a glance at her.
Wu nodded back.
Hardy and Wu were walking across the parking lot. Out in front of them, the sun still hadn't cleared the hills across the bay, and wisps of fog still hung in the air, but the chill had already gone out of it. Overhead the sky was a clear blue and there was no wind.
"What did you mean in there? There are questions- which hasn't exactly been your mantra since you got on this case. I was wondering if something had happened."
"Nothing specific. I just decided that I needed to adjust my attitude if I wanted to keep on defending him. His position hasn't budged- he's innocent." She shrugged. "So I guess I decided to try on believing him, see what it felt like. At least it's got me thinking that it might be possible after all. Otherwise, why would he persist in all these insane contradictions? Until I read his short story, I thought he just might not be too bright, but we know it isn't that."
"No. We know it isn't that."
"Right. So now I'm kind of leaning the opposite way, thinking he's just too smart to have made up so much dumb stuff. He wouldn't have shot them and left the gun on the table, for example. Period. He just wouldn't have done it. Anyway, once I decided maybe he wasn't lying about everything, it gave me some hope."
"That's funny." Hardy told her that some similar thoughts had been surfacing for him since he'd started to consider the fact that the upstairs neighbor, the state's prime witness, hadn't said he'd heard any gunshots. But as soon as he'd said it aloud to Wu, he immediately backpedaled.
"It's nowhere near certain," he said. "I've got to talk to him again. Salarco. About the gun. What it looked like. If it had any kind of silencer on it, he would have had to notice. But if not, then I've got to find out if the cops found any kind of muffling agent at Mooney's. Maybe the shooter shot through a pillow or something."
They'd both stopped walking. Wu faced him. "There's no indication of that from the crime scene pictures. I didn't see anything in discovery."
"I know. I double-checked them myself. And Salarco probably would have mentioned something like a silencer if he'd seen one. It's a big old protruding tube stuck on the end of the barrel, you know. It's not something you'd miss."
"So what are you saying? If all of this gets borne out?"
"Well, the simplest interpretation, which is always the best, is that if Andrew's gun didn't have a silencer on it, and he didn't use anything to kill the sound, then that gun- the purported murder weapon- never got fired that night." Hardy's eyes were bright with the possibility. "It's not quite exactly the other dude that I must say there's no sign of, but Andrew's gun is a big part of the picture. If I can get Johnson to listen, or get Salarco to testify that he got a good gander at the gun and it looked normal…"
"… then… wait a minute."
"What?"
"Well, being devil's advocate, Andrew could have used a silencer, killed Mooney and Laura, then taken the silencer off and ditched it before he came back to call nine one one."
"Then got rid of the gun? A second trip? I don't see that happening. I can't see Andrew doing that."
"I don't either. But Jason Brandt will see it, and the argument's then refuted and we're back where we started."
"No. Not exactly," Hardy said, "at least I'm not."
"What would be the difference?" Wu asked.
"You mean if everything is just as I described it to you now? Salarco didn't just miss the two shots? No muffling agent in the house, no silencer on the gun?"
"Yeah. What then?"
Hardy's eyes were out of focus while the idea worked itself into something like resolution in his mind. The matter settled, he came back to her. "Then I'm pretty sure I don't have to pretend to myself anymore. If Salarco didn't hear the gun, then Andrew didn't shoot it. And you know what that means? What I've got to believe?"
"What's that?"
"He's innocent. Somebody else killed them."
PART THREE
23
Hardy's medical business with Frannie- taking her to the doctor, getting her back home, into bed and fed- trumped any interaction he might have had with Juan Salarco, and took up a good portion of his morning. Rebecca, the dear, had told her mother that since Dad had taken the regular car, she had no choice but to drive herself and Vincent to school in the convertible. So after he'd changed into his business suit, then called to speak with the principal at Sutro, he swung down to their high school, found the S2000 in the lot and switched cars on her, leaving a note about the broken window on the 4Runner so she wouldn't think it had happened at school.