John Lescroart - Nothing But The Truth

She pulled the writ over and scratched an angry signature at the bottom. As Hardy reached for it, she held it back one last second. ‘If I take the bench tomorrow and Ron Beaumont isn’t in the courtroom, you don’t even get three minutes.’

Lou the Greek’s had a kind of Chinese version of paella as the special. Chunks of octopus (perhaps tire) , sausage, maybe chicken – it was hard to tell – and some red stuff, all mixed into the rice with soy sauce. Since every day the special was the only item on the menu, Hardy ordered it. A wave of hunger had hit him in Glitsky’s office and he would gladly have ordered even some variant of spam musabi if it had been offered. It probably would have been better than the paella which, he had to admit, didn’t quite sing.

But he ate most of it, sitting in one of the window booths which, at the underground Lou’s, began at the level of the alley outside. As it was, he could have been eating tires for all he cared about the food.

Something far more compelling commanded his attention – the love letters of Jim Pierce to Bree Beaumont, the ones she’d saved in the back of her high-school yearbook. There were a dozen of them, all of them relatively short – half a page or a little more – and painfully, adolescently passionate. Hallmark poetry that made him wince: ‘Never have/I touched or felt/Never/Even knew/Oh, the craving/Touching/Wanting/ Only you.’

Three were on Caloco stationery. None were dated, although all of the paper had grown brittle, leading Hardy to conclude that the last of them had been written several years before.

So David Freeman had been right again, Hardy thought with awe when he put down the last letter. And why should that have been a surprise? Pierce might be married to a world-class beauty, as President Kennedy had been, but this was no guarantee that he wouldn’t have affairs. Human nature, Freeman had said. Men want a lot; women want the best one.

Just as Hardy felt they were finally closing in on some kind of Kerry/Thorne connection to Bree’s death, he didn’t need this complication. He could understand Pierce’s denials, especially in the presence of his wife. And judging from the age of these letters, the relationship might have ended years before, possibly before either of them were even married. But the discovery was unwelcome – he was trying to narrow his list of suspects, not expand it. And if Pierce and Bree had ever been lovers – now a foregone conclusion – it put the oilman back in the picture, at least tangentially.

‘How was it today, Diz?’

Lou the Greek himself hovered over the table, breaking Hardy out of his reverie. He smiled, indicating his nearly cleaned plate. ‘Maybe the best ever, Lou.’

The proprietor showed a lot of teeth under his thick gray mustache. ‘People been saying that all morning. I’m thinking we might go regular with it.’ He slid into the booth across the way. The dark eyes were not smiling anymore. ‘Hey, I hear some things. You, your wife, the house? You OK?’

Hardy shrugged. ‘Getting by, Lou, getting by.’

‘You need anything, you let me know.’ He brushed at his mustache, embarrassed. Lou hesitated another moment, then nodded. ‘OK, then.’ He extended his hand and Hardy took it. ‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘And today’s on me.’

Hardy thanked Lou and, struck by the unexpected kindness, watched him as he began to schmooze another table. It was one of the few personal interactions he’d ever had with the man in twenty-some years and he wasn’t at all sure where it had come from.

Their common humanity?

The thought brought him up short. Unexpectedly, the urge to goodness was still in the world. It wasn’t him alone, or Frannie alone. He came back to Ron Beaumont – if he was innocent, and Hardy was now willing to believe he was, he was living a nightmare as hellish as Hardy’s own, or Frannie’s.

And his wife was right – ‘the best thing,’ she’d said. The options were endless, but the best thing was if she didn’t have to tell. And for that to happen, they were all depending on him. On his judgment and skill, yes. But more than those, really, at the base of it, on his humanity.

Turning back to Pierce’s letters, he realized with surprise that he wasn’t going to go anywhere with them. At least not today. There was no time. For the moment, he knew all he needed about Pierce. He’d lied under duress. He had loved Bree. Maybe he’d even killed her – out of jealousy, rejection, his own despair.

But the trail to the truth did not lead through Pierce from where Hardy sat now. He had to choose his best course, and that led him back to Carl Griffin, who had died pursuing the same thing.

Heritage Cleaners ran its business out of an upstairs office overlooking a grimy, wet and – today – windswept alley in Chinatown. Hardy turned off Grant and into the narrow passageway. A thin trickle of some kind of effluent flowed down a narrow and shallow concrete trough that bisected the way. He passed several dumpsters rich with the odors of cabbage, rotten meat, and urine. The body of a small brown puppy lay pitiably against one of the buildings. Hardy couldn’t help himself – he bent over, closer, to be sure it couldn’t be saved. Then he gathered some newspaper, wrapped up the bundle, and placed it in one of the smelly dumpsters.

Checking the address, Hardy ascended the dark flight of stairs. If he were going to take his shirts to the cleaners, he thought this would be his last choice. But once inside, the office was a surprise. Though still a far cry from the modern antiseptic bustle of FMC’s headquarters, Heritage was well lit, apparently organized, a couple of computers at some workstations.

And – the big surprise – it wasn’t a laundry.

A frail-looking, elderly Chinese man sporting bifocals and a starched, white collarless shirt looked up and rose from one of the fours desks when the door opened. He spoke good if accented English. ‘I am Mr Lee. How may we help you?’

Hardy handed him a business card. ‘I am helping to investigate the death of a police officer and I wonder if I could have few minutes of your time.’

Mr Lee checked the card again. ‘Are you with the police?’

‘No.’ At the man’s frown, Hardy pressed ahead. ‘But I believe the officer may have come here and spoken to someone about a woman’s death.’

The man did the math in his head. ‘Two deaths now?’

‘Actually, three or more.’ He paused to let the fact sink in. ‘I’m working with the police.’ This wasn’t precisely true, and Hardy was about to tell Mr Lee he could call Abe to smooth things over, but saw that he was nodding, accepting. ‘The inspector was Carl Griffin.’

Again, a frown. Deeper this time. ‘A big gentleman, wasn’t he? Not too clean? He’s dead?’

Hardy felt a spark of hope. ‘Yes. He was killed a few weeks ago. I was hoping to find out what he questioned you about.’

The nodding continued, then Mr Lee motioned for Hardy to follow, and led him over to the desk he’d lately abandoned. The old man worked with the keyboard, nodded, and pointed at the screen. ‘Twelve oh six Broadway,’ he said. ‘Our customers.’

‘Do you clean the whole building?’

‘No. There are, I believe twenty-three or four units, all individually owned. We contract through the superintendent for the public areas, and many residents are happy with our service.’

‘And Bree Beaumont was one of them?’

‘Yes.’ Mr Lee shot a glance at Hardy, and ventured a personal comment. ‘It was very sad about her.’

‘Yes it was,’ he said. Sadness was all over this case. He gave the sentiment a moment. ‘So what is your schedule there, for cleaning? I gather you go on Tuesday and Thursday – is that correct?’