John Lescroart - Nothing But The Truth

Hardy finally went back to the other room, sat in the chair at the desk, and half listened to the familiar goodnight noises.

The gun remained an uneasy presence, the unyielding pressure in his side. His stomach roiled with the unspent rage, the tension and hunger. A rogue wave of fatigue washed over him so powerfully that for a moment, snapping out of it, he was disoriented.

Out over the Bay, the huge planes on their airport approach floated down out of the darkling, cloud-scudded sky.

‘So what do you intend to do?’ Ron had closed the door to the kids’ room and pulled over a wing chair. ‘You want some coffee? A beer? Anything? The room’s got everything.’

‘I don’t want anything except my wife out of jail.’

‘Yeah, I can see that.’ Ron sat. ‘Look, I don’t blame you for being mad. I can’t tell you how sorry I am, but nobody could have seen this coming.’

‘You saw it enough three days ago that you left your apartment and took your kids out of school.’

‘That was when I learned they were going to talk to Frannie.’ Hearing his wife’s name used with such familiarity rekindled some of the flame of anger. Hardy fought it – it wasn’t going to get him what he needed, not now. But Ron was going on, explaining, rationalizing how none of this was entirely his fault. ‘That’s when I realized the investigation was coming back to me. I couldn’t hang around and let that happen.’

‘No. It was better to let them come after Frannie.’

‘I didn’t foresee that.’

‘You just said you knew they were talking to her. What did you think was going to happen?’

‘I had no idea. I told them I had been drinking coffee with her. I thought they’d probably want to make sure.’ He leaned forward in the chair. ‘I don’t know if you realize it, but the grand jury had already questioned me. I answered everything they asked me.’

‘But obviously lied about fighting with your wife.’

Suddenly the floor seemed to hold a fascination for Ron. Finally, he raised his eyes. ‘What was I supposed to do, put myself on their A-list?’

‘The theory is you tell them nothing but the truth. That’s the one Frannie went with. You might have told her she could tell your little secret.’

‘I thought all they wanted was corroboration on the alibi. You’ve got to believe that. The other stuff, I never thought it would come up.’

‘Well, it did.’ But this was old news and Hardy was sick of it. ‘So why didn’t you just take off when you knew they’d started looking? You had three days. You could be in Australia by now.’

‘The kids uprooted again. No insurance income from Bree’s death. The police after me.’

‘They’re after you now.’

‘That’s not what I hear. Not yet.’

Macho or no, Hardy almost reached for the gun, to put an end to this stupidity. Take the man in and let the chips fall.

But then he remembered the three innocent, shackled children from Judge Li’s courtroom. An example of what could happen – something similarly terrible almost inevitably would happen – to Cassandra and Max. Furious as he was, he couldn’t be responsible for putting them into the criminal justice system. Not yet, anyway. Not if there were any other way.

Ron was leaning forward, tight-lipped and earnest. His elbows were on his knees and his hands were gripped, white-knuckled, together in front of him. ‘Look, I know this is bad for you. Horrible. But my first responsibility has to be to my guys in there. I know you understand that.’

Hardy couldn’t say anything. It galled him, but the fact was that it was true – he understood it completely.

Ron was going on. ‘And we’re not absolutely committed to running away either, not yet anyway. If this passes, the kids are back in school next week with a little unscheduled vacation and no one thinks a thing about it. The original plan was we’d take a few days off and see which way the wind was blowing.’ He let out a deep breath. ‘Maybe we wouldn’t have to go after all.’

‘Go where?’

‘Wherever. Anywhere.’

‘And do what?’

Ron hung his head again for an instant and brought it back up. ‘Start over. Again.’

If this was a not-so-subtle play for sympathy, it was misdirected. Hardy snapped out. ‘And meanwhile what happens to Frannie?’

‘I release her. She gets out.’

Hardy didn’t like the sound of that, either. ‘You release her?’

A nod. ‘From the promise.’

‘I got an idea, Ron. Why don’t you do it now? Like right now, this minute?’ Hardy’s voice had picked up some heat. He snatched up the pen and telephone pad from on the desk, held it out to him, once again considering the gun.

Ron was shaking his head no. ‘The minute she talks, we have to run, we have to relocate. Don’t you see that?’

Hardy looked around the suite. ‘What do you call this? This isn’t running?’

The pen was still out there in the air between them. Ron stood up slowly, took it, sat at the desk, and wrote for a minute.

When Hardy had read what he’d written, though, it didn’t strike him as nearly enough. The note was brief and specific, telling Frannie that the next time she went before the grand jury, she should feel free to reveal his secret if she felt she needed to. But Hardy’s problem was that the grand jury wasn’t meeting until next Tuesday morning, which left Frannie exactly where she was right now. In a cold fury, Hardy raised his eyes and spoke. ‘What the hell kind of good does this do?’

Ron sat on the edge of the bed and spoke with a desperate calm. ‘My understanding from the television – am I right? – is that poor Frannie’s in jail down there for four days no matter what happens with me.’

Hardy nodded. ‘That’s how it looks, but-’

Palm out, Ron stopped him. ‘Please. May I? So my hope is that I won’t have to do all this again – move my family, start over. I’ve already done it once, as you know. But the idea of doing it again…’ He drew in a breath. ‘I’d rather avoid that, and maybe I can.’

‘How’s that?’

‘If they find who did it.’

This was what Frannie had suggested only a few hours earlier, but Hardy was damned if he was going to make the same argument he’d made to her. He could be a lot more straightforward here. He heard his volume going up. ‘And what if they don’t, Ron? How about that?’

‘Then on Tuesday, the kids and I, we go. And Frannie can talk.’

‘She can tell the grand jury you’ve kidnapped your kids?’

‘I don’t see it that way, but yes.’

‘Put the FBI on your ass?’

A weak smile. ‘They’ve been there before. They won’t find me.’

‘And Frannie gets out of jail? She tells them everything?’

‘Yes. You have my word. Meanwhile, if Bree’s killer is found’ – he indicated the kids’ bedroom – ‘those guys maybe get to go back to a normal life. That’s all I want, really.’

And here was Frannie’s impetus in deciding to ask her husband to help her maybe-lover. Save some lives, she’d said, and he’d let himself be persuaded that she was talking about their own family.

But no.

Again, it was Ron. His kids.

Hardy knew nothing of the truth about Ron and Frannie, about Ron and his earlier marriage, the custody battle, Bree or her life or any of the political issues surrounding it. Three days wasn’t enough time, even if he had an entire police department working with him, even if he was motivated to do it.

Which he wasn’t.

He couldn’t use his cop friends, his lawyer connections, or any of his personal channels because he’d sworn himself to secrecy. Finding a likely suspect for Bree’s murder was a ridiculous notion. And why would he want to anyway? Ron Beaumont might not be anything he appeared right now. It might all be an act.