John Lescroart - Nothing But The Truth

But he was still personable, at least to Hardy, who over the years had been the conduit of a lot of good information and the subject of one or two columns. He and his wife had even been to parties at Hardy’s house.

Jeff had undoubtedly come downtown today after the water poisoning. Barring an assassination of the President or an eight-point earthquake, this was going to be tomorrow’s headline and there were political elements all over it.

But now that Hardy had stuck his head in his door, first things first. Jeff swung away from his computer and motioned him in. ‘Big D,’ he said. ‘¿ Que pasa ?’ Then he remembered and grew suddenly serious. ‘How’s Frannie holding up?’

Hardy made a face. What could he say?

Jeff shook his head in disgust. ‘I’d sue Braun, Pratt, Randall, the whole lot of ’em. Or kill them. Maybe both.‘

‘No options are out of the question.’

‘So you got my call at home?’

‘No. I’ve been out all day.’

This surprised Jeff. ‘Well, the message was that I was going to give this Frannie thing a couple of graphs on Monday, maybe get somebody’s attention. I thought you could give me a good quote.’

Hardy smiled thinly. ‘Nothing you could print in a family newspaper.’

Jeff looked a question. ‘So you didn’t get the message and yet you’re here?’

‘I saw a free parking place at the curb. Hell, the whole street. What could I do? I said to myself, “Self,” I said, “why don’t you have a little off-the-record chat with your good friend Jeff Elliot?” ’

This brought a smile. Long ago, Hardy had neglected to preface some remarks to Jeff that they were off the record. It hadn’t worked out too well, and since then Hardy had made it a point to include the words ‘off the record’ in every discussion he ever had with Jeff, even purely social ones.

Jeff smiled. ‘I was waiting for that.’

‘Plus,’ Hardy continued, ‘I thought it was possible you might know something I don’t.’

‘Probably. I’m good on the Middle Ages and Victorian England.’

‘Dang.’ Hardy snapped his fingers. ‘Neither of those. I was thinking more about Frannie, Bree or Ron Beaumont, this MTBE business.’ Hardy thought a minute. ‘Damon Kerry. Al Valens.’

Jeff cracked a grin. ‘You done? I think you left out my wife and a couple of senators.’

Hardy spread his palms in a frustrated gesture. ‘I can’t seem to get much of it to hang together.’

The columnist swung his wheelchair around to face Hardy. ‘In return for which I get the exclusive of the big secret Frannie’s gone to jail about?’

‘Nope, but you might get Bree’s killer before anybody else.’

‘Are you close to that? Everybody’s saying it’s the husband. Ron, is it?’

A shake of the head. ‘Abe Glitsky, whom you may remember is head of homicide, is definitely not saying it. And Abe be the man on this stuff.’

‘He’s not on Ron?’

Pause. ‘It’s not Ron.’

He’d almost said that Glitsky was affirmatively saying it wasn’t Ron, which wasn’t true. But if that’s what Jeff Elliot heard, he wouldn’t correct the impression.

‘So who’s your guess? You got one?’

In his chair, Hardy drew a deep breath. He’d gathered a lot of information. But in spite of feeling as though he’d gotten somewhere in his investigation, he realized that he couldn’t precisely define where that was. When he asked Elliot to tell him about Damon Kerry, it surprised him almost as much as it did Jeff. Where had that question come from?

Jeff was shaking his head. ‘That’s got to be a big negatory, Diz.’

‘Maybe. But I’d sure like to know more than I do about the two of them, Bree and the good candidate.’

For a response, Jeff sat all the way back in his wheelchair behind his desk. He pulled at his mustache, scratched his beard, and brushed at the front of his shirt.

‘No hurry,’ Hardy prodded, shooting Jeff a hopeful grin. ‘It’s only Frannie doing hard time for keeping a promise.’

Finally, the reporter sighed. ‘You know, the connections,’ he said. ‘You don’t put them together.’ But Jeff wasn’t quite ready to spill anything, not yet. The impish smile from his youth fleetingly appeared as he came forward, his hands together on the desk. ‘You know that off-the-record thing we do? This is one of those, private and personal.’

‘Done. Understood.’ Hardy was beginning to feel a little like a Catholic priest in a confessional. A couple more days like the last few and he’d know every secret in the world and wouldn’t be able to tell any of them. But if that was the price for knowledge, he had to pay it.

Eve’s bad trade. He could only hope it wouldn’t turn out as badly for him as it had for her.

Jeff underscored it. ‘So this is personal, your ears only. If it doesn’t directly help Frannie, it stays here.’

‘Deal.’ Hardy got up and they shook hands over the desk. ‘So what connections?’ he asked.

‘What you just said. Frannie in jail. Kerry in another file in the brainpan – the election, the water poisoning today, all that. I didn’t put them together.’ His eyes shone with interest. ‘But they are together, aren’t they? They’re all Bree.’

‘That’s my guess.’

Jeff fidgeted in his chair, came to his decision, and nodded.

‘Have I mentioned the off-the-record thing?’

Hardy was dying to learn what Jeff knew, but it never helped to show it. He broke an easy smile. ‘Once or twice.’

He waited.

‘The thing about Kerry is that he’s really a good guy, especially for a politician. I’ve been with him more than a few times, in press rooms, after the odd banquet, off the record -much like you and me right now, and he’s decent. Plus he plays straight with us.’

‘Us?’

‘Reporters, media, like that.’

‘OK.’ And…?

‘OK, so a guy like that, sometimes a guy like me finds out a fact and kind of unofficially decides it doesn’t have to be in the public interest.’

Hardy’s eyebrows went up. ‘Excuse me. I thought I just heard you say that the media could show some restraint.’

Jeff acknowledged the point with a wry face. ‘I’m talking personal here. Me. It’s not something I brag about, but it happens. Sometimes.’ At Hardy’s skeptical look, he spread his palms wide. ‘OK, rarely. But the point is, Kerry’s not married, he can date anybody he wants. As our President has pointed out, it’s his private life. It’s not news.’

‘But Bree was married.’

‘And maybe they didn’t do anything let’s say carnal. Maybe she just hung around a lot and it was purely the campaign and business.’

Hardy leaned forward. ‘But you know otherwise?’

‘Did I catch them inflagrante? No. But I know. My opinion is they were in love with each other.’

This took a minute to digest, although Hardy had come to suspect it.

But Jeff was going on. ‘She only lived a half-dozen blocks from him, both of ’em up on Broadway, you know.‘

‘No, I didn’t know about him. I knew she did.’

‘Well, Kerry, too. His place is that little thirty-room shack just up from Baker. You’d remember it if you saw it, and you have.’ Jeff seemed almost relieved to be able to let his secret out. If he’d promised not to print it, telling somebody who in turn couldn’t tell was next best. ‘Anyway, couple of months ago I was pushing Damon for an interview – as I said, we go back a ways, too – and he said meet him at his place after hours, he’d dig up something for me. He was coming in from Chico or someplace, and was going to be alone, which meant without Valens. Except when I got there, who opens the door but Bree Beaumont.’