John Lescroart - The 13th Juror

So, Hardy thought, Larry had been beating Jennifer. Without a doubt, so had her first husband Ned. According to Lightner's theory she would have had a difficult time marrying either of them if they hadn't gotten at least a little tough with her during courtship – they wouldn't have felt like husband material.

Whether or not it could be proved in a court of law, Terrell's scenario of Jennifer injecting Ned with atropine was plausible. And – Hardy had to believe – if she killed Ned, it was a possibility that she killed Larry, too.

Next was, if Jennifer did kill both men, at least she had a good reason, though Hardy had a hard time with any kind of premeditated murder.; Jennifer, on her part, still hadn't budged an inch on her denial of abuse, which continued to infuriate David Freeman, signed affidavit or no.

Freeman was afraid he would lose and that the decision would be upheld on appeal. But he was hamstrung – he couldn't bring up BWS at all. If he did he was all but admitting that Jennifer did it and even process of saying why, in spite of all her denials.

Hardy had finally located brother Tom at a construction site near the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park. Struck out during the day, Hardy returned to the site after work hours wearing dirty jeans and carrying two six-packs of Mickey's Big Mouth and got him to talk for twenty minutes.

Hardy verified what the mother, Nancy, had said – Jennifer and Larry did not visit the family since a few months after the wedding. Tom had been seventeen at the time. Hardy could see that it had hurt the boy back then, although now the man covered it with bluster.

The last time Tom himself had seen the Witts had been Christmas Eve. No one had mentioned that before and Hardy asked why not.

Tom had shrugged it off. Why would anybody care? He'd gone by his parents' home during the afternoon, had a few beers, and his mother had started moaning about Jennifer and the grandchild she never saw. She'd bought Matt this great present and he wasn't even going to come over to see it.

Tom had gotten pissed off. He drove his motorcycle over to Olympia, intending – he said – to kick a little ass, but by the time he got there, he figured there wouldn't be any point. He wasn't going to change them. He'd dropped off his own Christmas present – a whiffle ball and bat – with his nephew, said Merry Christmas to his sister, told her she really ought to go by their parents so Matt could get his present from his grandmother, then left.

And, he added – no surprise, they didn't come.

But here, Hardy thought, might have been the catalyst Glitsky had been talking about. Out of the blue, Tom might not wake up one morning and say, "I think I'll go kill my brother-in-law," but he sure as hell might do it three days after being snubbed during the holidays, touching off years of resentment.

Walter Terrell sat in with them while they went through the physical evidence, and stood over them in the evidence lockup while Hardy and Freeman checked off the computer list with the items that came out of the bags.

There was Larry's blood-stained shirt. All the other clothes. The stuff that had been in pockets – Larry had a comb, a small Swiss Army knife, keys, some coins including a quarter painted with red nail polish.

"Larry hung out in bars?" This didn't fit Hardy's profile so far.

Terrell shook his head. "No sign of it."

"That's a bar quarter." Freeman and Terrell both looked at him blankly. "For the juke box," he explained. "You paint your quarters red, you feed the box, you don't get charged when they come collect."

Freeman was unimpressed. "So he went out for a drink on Christmas Eve. Maybe. I've had quarters like that turn up in my pocket. Means nothing."

But pickings had been so slim that Hardy wanted to keep grabbing. "Two days before he gets killed, anything he did means something."

Freeman didn't respond. He had already moved the pile of coins to the side, going on to what looked like a bag full of trash. "What's this stuff?" Forensics had picked the room clean and bagged whatever might have interest – in this case the contents of the bedroom waste-basket – used Kleenexes, used Christmas ribbon and wrapping paper, the kind of plastic bag they wrapped shirts in at the dry-cleaners. "This is evidence?"

Terrell pushed another bag toward Freeman, answered wearily. "You know the drill, sir. It's here if you want to use it. It's your decision what's important."

Freeman pulled the bag nearer and slid the gun out onto the table. He picked it up, checked its serial number against the prosecution's proposed exhibit list, smelled the barrel. He checked the fingerprint report and his eyebrows went up. "They didn't find her prints on the gun?"

"The clip." This wasn't any surprise to Terrell. He pulled another bag and pushed it to them. "She wiped the gun."

"Somebody wiped the gun." Freeman gave him the bad eye.

And Terrell shrugged. "If you say so." It was getting late on a Friday afternoon, and the room in the basement of the Hall of Justice didn't have the best ventilation.

Freeman tipped up the bag, expecting the clip to fall out. Instead they were all looking at another gun. "What the hell is this? Where's this on the list?"

Terrell read from the list. "Bag 37, Dumpster contents. Want to see the egg cartons we found with it?"

"Yeah, but what the hell is it?" Freeman repeated. "Why is it here?"

Terrell was holding up his hands. "It was there. Now it's here. How should I know?"

"But it's a gun."

Terrell reached over and picked it up. He put on his official voice. "Sir! Please, calm down."

"I'm calm enough!" Freeman sat back in his chair. "All right, son, I'm calm."

Terrell explained. "It's a toy gun. It's a good toy gun, but it's plastic. See? That's all. As far as I know it's got nothing to do with the evidence in this case."

"Then why is it here?" Hardy could play the straight man if it came to it. The questions were obvious enough.

"It's here because they found it in the same dumpster as the other gun, the murder weapon. I thought at the time it might be worth holding onto."

"The same dumpster?"

Terrell nodded. "They both clunked out onto the street. Guy who found 'em, when he saw the real gun, gave us a call."

"The garbage man?" Hardy asked.

"Right."

"How does this connect?" Freeman was still sitting back, trying to get a take on it.

"It doesn't, that's what I'm trying to tell you. I just had a theory and thought I'd run with it. You never know."

Hardy knew this was Terrell's MO. "What was your theory?"

"I don't know. The perp comes in with this gun – looks real, doesn't it? – maybe he's doing a burglary, keeps it to threaten people. He gets to the bedroom, sees the real gun, gets surprised by Larry and the boy, panics, boom boom. This was before I fingered Jennifer."

"Did they print that gun, the toy?"

"Sure. Nothing, though. Anyway, I figured they had to be connected, right? But I was wrong. Besides, the guy tells me guns are the number-one toy you find in the garbage sector."

"Garbage sector…?"

"His words. Parents don't want their kids to grow up violent, so some relative sends them a gun for Christmas or something, they toss it. Second is Barbie dolls. You believe that? Who'd throw away a Barbie doll, brand new?"

"Can we stick to the gun?" Freeman was leaning forward now, interested.

Terrell shrugged. "Hey, you want it, you can have it. Here, check it out."

He handed it to Freeman, who gave it the once over, then passed it to Hardy. "What do you think?"

"It's a toy gun in a dumpster."

Freeman mulled it a few more seconds. "Anything else in this dumpster you bagged that isn't connected to anything, Wally? You want to waste more of our time." Freeman was picking at the bags, lifting them, dropping them. "We got trash, we got toy guns…" He shook his head. "Christ. How 'bout we get to see the clip?"