"In the car?"
"No, on the slope. Skiing."
"Is she okay? Where is she now? Can I talk to her?"
"She says she'll be okay, you know? You're not supposed to worry. But you can't talk to her. They had her on a backboard to the ambulance and now they've got her in the emergency room and the Beck's waiting outside in case… Anyway, she said I ought to call you."
"Where are you?"
"The hospital in Truckee. By the emergency room."
"I'm on my way up. I'm on my cellphone the whole way."
"Okay. And, Dad?"
"Yeah, bud?"
"Hurry, huh?"
Frannie was going to be okay. As Vinnie had said, nobody was going to die. But okay was a relative thing.
They let him take her home on Sunday, but as soon as she got there, Hardy was to make sure she got in bed and stayed there until her local doctor told her she could get up. She'd definitely sustained a concussion. It was very much out of character for Frannie, who didn't like to acknowledge physical pain, but she didn't argue with him at all. She'd be wearing a neck brace and sporting an arm sling for at least six weeks. After that they'd do some more tests and have a clearer picture of what, if any, further damage had been done to her spine and/or neck. She'd also cracked two ribs on her left side and sustained a Ping-Pong-ball fracture of the left shoulder socket in the course of dislocating it.
By the time he had fed her some soup and settled her into bed, it was full dusk, but the Beck still hadn't made it home. She'd been driving his hot little sports car, following close, but they'd lost sight of her in the traffic just outside Sacramento, and now they'd been home for almost an hour and still no sign of her.
For dinner, Hardy and Vincent cooked up two cans of corned beef hash- the black pan again, but without any romance- and quartered a head of iceberg lettuce with a mayo and ketchup thousand island poured over it. They amused themselves, and kept the unspoken fear about the Beck at bay by inventing tortures for the person who'd run into Frannie on the slopes, who of course didn't even slow down and had never been caught.
Finally, they heard the front door. Hardy put down his fork and prepared himself not to speak harshly. He'd almost been unable to swallow for the second half of his meal, as the minutes had passed. His beautiful, smart, clever seventeen-year-old was never late, and if anything had happened to her, too…
She stood at the end of the dining room. "I'm so sorry, Dad. I got a flat tire in Sacramento, and you had both cellphones with you, and I wasn't anywhere near a gas station. And then I couldn't figure out where they put the spare…"
"It's under the rug in the trunk," Vincent said.
"Thanks, dear brother, I know that now. And I even know how to change a flat tire. But, Dad, look, I pulled over and some guy stopped and… I mean, an older guy, and he helped me, but then he asked for my number, and I got… Anyway, I didn't think… I thought if he followed me…"
"Wait, wait, wait." Hardy held up a hand. "Did he follow you?"
"No. I don't think so. But I was afraid when I was parking…"
He stopped her again. "Are you okay now? Is the car okay? Good. Are you hungry? Sit down, I'll make you something." He stood up, put his arms around her, kissed the side of her face, the top of her hair. He kept his arms around her, tight around her back. "I love you. Everything's all right. Your mother's upstairs sleeping. Thanks for driving my car down. I'm sorry about the flat tire. They happen."
They separated and she looked up at him. Getting her bravery together. "But, Dad," she said, suddenly breaking a smile, "what a great car!"
Finally, finally, the kids both relatively calmed and catching up on their weekend's homework, he got to the Sunday paper. While they'd been gone, things had developed rapidly in the double homicides, and by this morning, "Executioner Stalks City Streets" was the banner headline. Ballistics had confirmed that both victims in the Friday night shootings had in fact been shot by the same weapon. Because of the nature of the attacks- the execution-style, point-blank shot to the heart- Marcel Lanier of homicide had told some reporters that he was afraid that what we had here was some type of executioner, and judging by the headline, the idiotic name looked like it was going to stick.
Hardy never even looked at his answering machine until the kids were asleep. He hadn't had a drop to drink since at least Thursday night, and was somewhat surprised to see that he hadn't missed it a bit. Still, now he thought he could use a beer. He opened a Sierra Nevada and, turning off the overhead, finally noticed the blinking light on the far end of the kitchen counter.
Salarco, getting back to him.
It was 11:15 on a Sunday night. The gardener undoubtedly got up at or near daybreak. Hardy wouldn't be doing himself or Salarco any favors by calling back this late.
For a minute, he cursed himself for all he'd absolutely had to do this weekend that he'd left unaccomplished. His client's hearing was now only two days away, and he'd made no progress of any kind. It had been through no fault of his own, true, but he knew that other lawyers might have found a way to proceed on the case even through two such difficult days. They might have called in partners or associates, hired private investigators, even pled hardship to the judge. He might have thought to do something, but all he'd been able to think of was the suffering of his wife, the worries of his children, the needs of his family.
"So sue me," he said aloud. Put down his unfinished beer. Went up to get some rest.
22
Hardy got the phone before it finished its first ring. Next to him, Frannie moaned but did not wake up. It seemed to be sometime in the middle of the night, pitch out the window.
"Hello." His sleep-edged voice cracked. He cleared his throat and said it again. "Hello."
The voice was urgent, yet controlled, the words hastily strung together. "Sorry to wake you up, sir. It's Amy. I just got a call from the YGC. Andrew's tried to kill himself."
"Give me a second." He was up, moving to the bathroom, where he closed the door behind him and turned on the light, blinking in the glare. "What do you mean, tried? Is he alive? What happened?"
"All I know is they called me about ten minutes ago. They said he tried to hang himself in his cell, but the guard heard something and got to him in time to cut him down. Or maybe the shirt he used ripped, it wasn't clear. It doesn't matter."
"So where is he now?"
"They were bringing him to SFGH." San Francisco General Hospital. "I'm on my way down now."
"I'll meet you there."
Dressed now in the same clothes he'd been wearing yesterday, and Saturday before that, down in the kitchen, he stopped to write a note to Rebecca and Vincent, telling them where he was going. They'd been getting themselves ready for school, making their own breakfasts, their bag lunches, for some time now. Beyond that, Hardy didn't know the Monday morning routine, but he was confident they could work it out themselves. He reminded them to check on their mother upstairs, make sure she got some food and liquid and her pain medication. He'd be back home, hopefully, by mid-morning if he could. Again, he'd be on his cellphone. Call with any questions or problems.
He grabbed his briefcase, glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. 4:30.
Outside, he paused in thin fog at the sidewalk just outside his gate, realizing that he didn't know where Rebecca had parked his car last night. Well, fortunately they had two of them. Now if he could only remember where he'd parked the 4Runner. After a minute's reflection, it came to him and he turned up toward Clement. Half-jogging now, he covered the two blocks down to Thirty-second, then turned right- the car was about midway down the block, under a burned-out streetlight.
The front seat was dew-drenched and cold. Inside the car, in fact, it seemed exceptionally cold, but the reason for it didn't really register until he turned to look over his shoulder as he put it in reverse so he could pull out. The backseat window on the passenger side wasn't there anymore. Neither, he suddenly realized, were the skis they'd left the night before.