John Lescroart - Nothing But The Truth

‘That’s correct.’

At this formal corroboration of the reason that this meeting had been called, Marian Braun spoke up. ‘Excuse me, Richard, but that being the case I can’t be here. I can’t discuss a case that’s before my court.’ She was already starting to get up.

But the mayor wasn’t impressed. ‘Why don’t you stick around anyway, Marian, in case the second half of this conversation concerns the court budget for next year. Maybe that will be worthy of your attention.’ He directed a fierce glare at her, and eventually, she yielded to it and settled herself back in her chair.

Richard Washington took another deep draught of coffee, and carefully replaced the cup in its china saucer. The silence was perfect.

The rage came from nowhere, which made it all the more effective. Suddenly the mayor slapped the flat of his palm on the table with enormous force. China rattled and some coffee spilled. Everyone jumped. ‘Do you have any idea the amount of trouble you’ve caused with this, Mr Randall?’ he exploded. ‘Any idea?’

It took a split second even for the quick-witted Randall to recover. ‘It was part of my investigation into-’

Washington interrupted again. ‘You think we’re all operating in a vacuum? Well, let me help you out…’

Pratt interrupted. ‘With respect, sir…’

The mayor didn’t seem any too happy with the DA, either. He faced her and snapped. ‘What, Sharron?’

‘The issue isn’t that it’s caused some political trouble. The issue is legal. Mr Randall did the right thing.’

Washington conjured with that for a moment. His voice with its normal inflection was almost more frightening. ‘I absolutely reject that,’ he said. ‘What he did – what Marian did, too, for that matter – might not be illegal, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was right.’

Pratt retained the serenity that only knowing that you are right can provide. ‘The woman refused to cooperate with the grand jury, Richard. She was belligerent and disrespectful.’

‘She was a housewife worried about picking up her children. That’s what the media seems to have settled on, that’s what Jeff Elliot wrote about yesterday. And now her house has been burned. Did any of you happen to notice that?’

‘That’s irrelevant,’ Pratt responded. ‘What’s your point, Richard?’

‘My point is that I’m taking a tremendous amount of flack for allowing this travesty to continue in my city. Mr Randall, in his inexperience, over-reacted. Folks, I want the woman released. Today.’

A collective gasp, then silence fell around the table.

‘I can’t do that, Richard.’ Braun was firm. ‘The first contempt citation expires tonight, and she has to serve that out. Mr Randall here can call her before the grand jury first thing tomorrow morning, at which point her continued incarceration will be up to her if she decides to talk or Mr Randall if she decides not to.’

The mayor made no effort to hide his sarcasm. ‘Thank you, your honor, but I want it clear that holding innocent citizens in jail out of personal pique doesn’t sit well with me.’

Randall finally found his voice again. ‘The woman is not innocent, your honor. She knows something.’

‘She knows something.’ Washington nodded, his mouth twitching at the corners. ‘I’m glad you brought that up, Mr Randall. Chief Rigby,’ he whirled, ‘has anyone been charged or indicted in the murder of Bree Beaumont to date?’

‘No, sir.’

‘So this Hardy woman knows something about somebody, but we don’t know what and we don’t know if it’s got anything to do with that murder?’

No one answered. Washington glared around the table. ‘And yet she sits in jail.’ He shook his mane of hair in disgust. ‘I called this meeting to acquaint all of you with my very strong feelings about this matter. I’m going to air those feelings at this morning’s press conference, and I wanted to do all of you the courtesy of a heads up. No one has more respect than I do, Marian – and you, too, Sharron – for the judicial process. But I’m hard pressed to believe that this woman knowingly holds the key to a murder. So this is mere pettiness.’ He pointed again at Randall. ‘And, son, for you, this is what we call overweening ambition. It’s not an admirable quality. If you hadn’t tried to end-run the police department, we wouldn’t be here now. Chief Rigby?’

‘Yes, sir.’ From his expression, he knew what was coming. The chief of police was the pawn of the mayor, appointed by him, accountable to him. And Rigby had just found himself on the wrong side of the fence.

‘Apparently you’ve been trying to make kissy-face with Ms Pratt so that her fear and loathing of the police would not too greatly interfere with the day-to-day workings of the department. I even applaud your intentions. But we’ve got a homicide department and it’s not run by Mr Struler here, or by Ms Pratt. If you don’t like Glitsky, get a new head of homicide. But the police department investigates murders and you back up your people. Clear?’

It was to Rigby. But Washington wasn’t through yet. ‘Sharron, Marian. You’re both elected officials. I’m just a layman in matters of the law, but this comes across as serious arrogance and the public seems to have a bad reaction to that particular trait. You might want to think about that.’

Hardy opened his eyes and for the second time in as many days had to take a minute to figure out where he was.

Down a floor, in the lobby of the Freeman Building, he put on a pot of coffee, then went in for a shower. In ten minutes, he was back in his office, dressed in his smoky clothes and drinking coffee from an oversized mug.

The fog remained. He put in a call to Erin, told her where he was, and spoke to the kids, who were polite and even solicitous. Was he all right? They missed him. He and Mom were coming to stay with them so they’d all be together at Grandma and Grandpa’s in two days, right? They really, really, really missed him and Frannie.

He believed them.

After he hung up, he went back to the couch and sat. His brief from the night before was ready to submit for typing downstairs, and he left it with the early morning staff at word processing, then took the stairs two at a time back to the work that waited for him.

The xeroxed pages of Griffin’s notebook.

Griffin had been working on a number of homicides at the time of his death. Snatches from each of them were scattered on each page - names, dates, addresses. Arrows for connections. Exclamation points. Phone numbers.

In his previous passes through the pages, whenever Hardy had run across a name that didn’t appear elsewhere in some other file on Bree Beaumont, he’d assumed it was from one of the other cases. It was tedious and inexact, but he had to eliminate on some criterion, and this had seemed as reasonable as any.

This morning, though, he resolved to read it all through again. Things had changed. And if Damon Kerry had a connection to Baxter Thorne that Griffin had been aware of, he wanted to know about it. Hardy hadn’t even heard of Thorne or FMC the last time he’d read the pages. Nor a lot else.

Carl had been shot on Monday, 5 October. Bree had died on the previous Tuesday, 29 September, so he started there. At least Carl tended to enter dates with some regularity.

It appeared that on day three of his investigation, 10 01, he’d slogged through the usual opening gambit of talking to people who lived in the deceased building. Suddenly the name O. or D. Chinn (or something in a smeared scrawl very much like it) popped up at him.

Hardy had assumed this was an Asian witness from one of Griffin’s other cases and hadn’t considered it at all, but now, suddenly, he remembered the superintendent in Bree’s building and consulted his own notes on his yellow pad. David Glenn. D. Chinn. Close enough.