John Lescroart - Nothing But The Truth

‘Dressed?’

Jeff chuckled. ‘You’ve got a dirty mind. Let’s go with casually attired. Casually and very, very attractively.’ He paused, remembering, then blew out a rush of air. ‘Very. Low green silk blouse, linen pants, barefoot. I distinctly remember she forgot her underwear on top. Believe me, it was the kind of thing you noticed, especially on her, even if you weren’t a trained reporter like me, alive to every detail.’

Hardy wanted to keep him going. ‘I keep hearing how pretty she was.’

‘A couple of miles beyond pretty, Diz. In any event,’ he continued, ‘here’s a bottle of champagne in a bucket on the coffee table, and otherwise the house is empty. So ask me, do I feel like I’m intruding? Moi ?’

‘So what was it?’

‘Evidently she was planning to surprise him with a little welcome homecoming after the road trip. So he shows about ten minutes after I arrive, opens the door and it’s like, uh, “Hi, Bree, fancy you being here. Now, how ’bout them gas additives?” Call me a genius, but I saw right through it.‘

‘You’re a genius.’

Jeff nodded. ‘Somebody has to be. So anyway, they were together, and I knew it, and they knew I knew it. And I told them I’d keep a lid on it.’

‘I’m just curious, but why would you do that?’

He shook his head as though mystified himself. ‘I don’t know, Diz. I like the guy. I like his politics. It meant a lot to them.’ He met Hardy’s eyes. ‘Bottom line is I just decided. It shames me to say it, but I might even do the same for you.’

‘You don’t have to,’ Hardy replied. ‘I wasn’t sleeping with Bree. But after she was killed, weren’t you tempted to talk to the police?’

‘Why? Nobody’s saying Damon’s a suspect.’

Hardy looked a question. ‘At the least, Jeff, she’s murdered and you know he’s her lover. That’s got to be relevant to the homicide investigation. Maybe even crucial.’

‘It’s also relevant to Damon’s campaign, maybe even crucial. He didn’t kill her, Diz. There is no way. Plus, I want to see him get elected, and I sure as hell don’t have to tell the cops what I know. Maybe if some inspector had come and made some connection, asked me directly… I don’t know, I might have been tempted. But nobody did. Nobody has.’

‘But as you say, Jeff, it is all connected. It’s got to be.’ For emphasis, Hardy patted the desk between them. ‘So today’s bonus question is who did the water? What’s the Clean Earth Alliance?’

Jeff shifted again in his wheelchair, brought a hand to his tired eyes and rubbed them. Glancing at his watch, he looked up suddenly to see that outside a sepia dusk had settled. ‘When am I going to learn not to work on weekends? Why did I come in here on a Saturday?’

Hardy leaned forward. Jeff knew something else and was wrestling with how much to reveal. Hardy kept it low affect. ‘You were going to write some graphs on Frannie.’

Which brought it all back home. Jeff sat still a moment, then wheeled himself around to a low file cabinet. Back at the desk, he laid open the thick file folder and began turning pages. ‘The Yosemite Militia. The Valdez Avengers. Earth Now.’ He looked up. ‘And today’s Clean Air Alliance. Get the picture?’

‘They’re all related?’

‘Let’s say I’d bet their headquarters is some cabin in Montana.’

‘So who runs them?’

‘Well, this is a matter of some debate.’ Jeff pulled pages and ran down a synopsis of damage these groups had done, most of it in the realm of nuisance – vandalisms and graffiti -but in two cases something much more serious.

The Valdez Avengers had claimed responsibility for a pipe bomb explosion at an Exxon Gas Station in Tacoma, Washington, that had killed four people and injured twelve. Jeff looked up from the page. ‘They didn’t want people to invest in Exxon. That daring raid killed a little girl, six years old. Boy, that showed her.’

More recently, at the huge refinery in Richmond, just across the Bay, three guards had been severely beaten in a thus-far unclaimed attack. The refinery’s statement was that nothing had been taken, and that the rest of their security team had driven off the five assailants, although they’d been unable to capture them. ‘But you want my opinion,’ Jeff concluded, ‘that’s when these clowns got their hands on the MTBE.’

‘But couldn’t they just as well have gone to the gas station and pumped it out at a buck twenty-nine a gallon?’

‘Sure, but what’s the fun in that? Diz, these people are thugs. They get their rocks off shaking things up, making the Big Statement. Like today.’

Hardy leaned back, crossed a leg. ‘And you’ve got all this stuff in one folder.’

‘Right. Like Bree and Frannie and Damon, it’s all connected somehow. And now this stuff,’ he motioned down to his pile of paper, ‘it’s part of that, too.’

‘So who’s behind it? I had a Caloco guy today tell me that SKO funded this kind of activity.’

But this didn’t fit Jeff’s world view. ‘No, I’d be surprised at that. SKO’s big. These independent bozos seem to hate big.’

Hardy pointed at the folders. ‘You got any stories about attacks on ethanol producers or distributors?’

Jeff didn’t have to look. ‘No, now that you mention it. And that’s a good point.’

‘Maybe these groups don’t know who’s bankrolling them. Maybe SKO’s got a front.’

Jeff nodded. ‘But that means…’ He stopped, the idea germinating. ‘Why would they…?’

‘I’ve been using this mantra all day,’ Hardy said. ‘You ought to try it.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Three billion dollars. Say it a few times. It’ll grow on you.’

David Freeman was not asleep and he wasn’t reading anything. But he was completely still, his feet propped up on the table in his Solarium, which was the nickname for the conference room just off the main lobby in his building. He wasn’t wearing shoes, and one of his Argyle socks had a hole in the toe. His cigar spiked the room with its rich odor and left the air with a blue tint, although there was no sign that Freeman was drawing on it, or even was aware of it, stuck there in the front of his face.

Hardy tapped once on the open door.

Not a muscle moved. Freeman sighed. ‘I was just thinking about you. How you doing?’

‘I’ve been better.’ Hardy pulled a chair and dropped himself into it. For a long moment, neither man said anything. Eventually, Hardy started. ‘I just called home for my messages. Did you know it’s Hallowe’en?’

‘What is?’

‘Tonight. It’s Hallowe’en.’

For the first time, Freeman favored him with a glance, went back to his cigar, and blew a long plume. ‘You forgot. Your kids are upset.’

It sounded like a chortle, but there wasn’t any humor in it. None at all. ‘What the hell am I…?’ He laid a hand on the table with exaggerated calm, drumming his fingertips. Da-da-dum, da-da-dum. ‘I’ve got a meeting here in ten minutes, David. It’s possibly even an important meeting, having to do with my wife being in jail, trying to get her out. Maybe I’m wrong, but this seems like something I ought to spend some of my time on.’

Another moment. Freeman had nothing to say, which was just as well. Hardy needed to vent.

‘So we got a killer I’m trying to find without any help from the police. We got the city’s water supply on hold for a couple of weeks. We got their mother rotting over downtown – have I mentioned that? And all these are somehow related and I’ve got no idea how. And do you know what the real problem is? I mean, the really big god damn most important thing wrong with the world right now tonight?’ The drumming had picked up in tempo. ‘You want to know?’