John Lescroart - Nothing But The Truth

‘No.’

This wasn’t making sense. If Frannie was the alibi of one of the main suspects in a murder case, the police would have interrogated her as a matter of course, if for no other reason than to have her words on the record. He’d have to remember to ask Abe why they hadn’t, if Abe knew. And if it were true.

But first, he was here. ‘OK, so you got the subpoena you didn’t tell me about…’

‘I thought it would be a quick hour in the middle of the morning, Dismas. There was no need to bother you with it.’

Hardy didn’t want to start down that road again. There were lots of facts he wanted to know. When they got home and out of this environment, things would seem different. They’d be able to talk until they got somewhere. Here in the jail, time pressed on them. ‘All right, so I assume you verified Ron’s alibi.’

‘I did.’

‘And after that?’

‘Well, this lawyer, the prosecutor – do you know a Scott Randall?’

Hardy shook his head. ‘I’ve heard the name. He’s the guy who put you here?’

She nodded. ‘He asked if Ron had told me about any problems between him and his wife that might have something to do with what happened to her.’

‘Why would he have told you that? Why did this Scott Randall think to ask that?’

‘I don’t know, but he did.’

Their eyes met across the room again, and this time Hardy left the doorway and came back to the table, sitting on a corner of it. ‘So what did you say?’

‘I said he had.’ She shrugged. ‘So Mr Randall asked me what it was, to tell the grand jury what Ron had told me.’

‘And?’

‘And I couldn’t do that.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I’d promised Ron I wouldn’t.’

‘OK, so what was it, this big secret?’

She looked up at him imploringly. ‘Dismas, come on.’

At this moment, before Hardy could respond, there was a knock at the door and the guard admitted Abe Glitsky, who was a study in controlled rage of his own. Stealing a quick look at Frannie, his eyes narrowed for a millisecond and the scar between his lips went white. Then he focused on Hardy. ‘It’s not happening,’ he said. ‘Braun’s not budging.’

Instinctively, forgetting their disagreements, Hardy reached a hand out on the table and Frannie took it. He looked down at her and her eyes were brimming. He didn’t blame her.

‘I can’t stay here, Dismas. Abe?’

Miserable, the two men looked at each other. They didn’t have to say anything. Jail was a reality in both of their lives. When a judge ordered it, people wound up staying all the time. Finally, Hardy let out a breath. ‘So what’s left, Abe? What are our options?’

The lieutenant was shaking his head. ‘I don’t know. I could talk to the desk – maybe get her in Adseg.’

‘What’s that?’ Frannie asked. ‘I’m right here, guys. Don’t third person me.’

‘Administrative segregation,’ Glitsky explained to her. ‘Basically it’s isolation, a nicer cell. Keep you away from the general population, which you want – trust me on this.’

‘This can’t be happening,’ Hardy said.

‘Evidently,’ Abe went on, looking at Frannie, ‘you broke the first rule of the courtroom – you don’t insult the judge.’

‘She’s a pompous ass,’ Frannie retorted. ‘She insulted me first.’

‘She’s allowed to insult you. It’s in her job description. What did you say to her?’

‘I told her I held her in contempt, that this whole thing was contemptible…’

Hardy was shaking his head, believing it all now. When Frannie got her dander up, watch out.

‘It got her four days,’ Glitsky said.

‘ Four days?’ Hardy gathered himself for a beat. ‘This isn’t about some secret?’

‘What secret? Not that I heard from Chomorro. It’s about Braun.’ Glitsky changed to a hopeful tone. ‘Maybe she’ll talk to you tomorrow, Diz.’

‘No maybe about it,’ Hardy said. ‘I’ll tackle her in the hallway if I have to.’

Frannie reached across the table. ‘Dismas, you can’t let them keep me here. The kids need me. This is some horrible mistake. It just started with this stupid promise. That’s all they wanted.’

‘So what is it? Tell me – I promise, I won’t tell anybody. You can hire me as your attorney and it’ll be privileged. Nobody will ever know and maybe we can use it as a chip. I’ll go wake up the judge at her house, explain the situation…’

Glitsky butted in. ‘I wouldn’t do that. What secret?’

Frannie ignored Abe. ‘They could just ask Ron. You, Dismas, could ask Ron. Go to his house and wake him up. Call him from here even. If he knew I was in jail, he’d tell them what they want to know. He wouldn’t let this happen to me.’

‘What is this secret?’ Glitsky asked again.

Frannie finally raised her voice. ‘The secret isn’t the issue!’ Her eyes pleaded with her husband, trying to tell him something, but what it was remained shrouded in mystery.

Then she shifted her glance quickly to Abe. ‘I promised Ron. I gave him my word. It’s his secret. Dismas, maybe if you could call him or go to his apartment and tell him what’s going on… I’m sure he’ll tell you. Then you come back and get me out of here.’

Abe was sifting through an armful of files he’d brought in from one of the desks in the homicide detail. He found the file he wanted and pitched it across his desk to Hardy. ‘As you recall from your days as a prosecutor, the address is there on the top right. Broadway.’

Hardy glanced down, then looked up. ‘No phone number? A phone number would be nice.’

‘A lot would be nice in that file, Diz. There’s next to nothing there.’ He sighed. ‘My first inspector got himself killed about a week into the case. You might remember him – Carl Griffin?’

Hardy nodded. ‘Yeah. He got killed how?’ He didn’t want to talk about any dead policemen, especially to his best friend the live one, but this might bear on Frannie and he had to know.

‘Some witness meeting went bad, we think.’

Sergeant Inspector Carl Griffin didn ‘t know it, but when he got up from his desk in the homicide detail on the fourth floor of San Francisco’s Hall of Justice on Monday morning, 5 October, it was for the last time.

He was the lone inspector working the murder of Bree Beaumont, a 36-year-old environmental and, recently, political consultant. He’d been on the case for six days. Griffin had been a homicide inspector for fourteen years and knew the hard truths by now – if you didn’t have a murderer in your sights within four days of the crime, it was likely you never would.

Carl was a plodder with a D in personality. Everybody in homicide, including his lieutenant, Abe Glitsky, considered him the dullest tack in the unit. Loyal and hardworking, true, but also slow, culturally ignorant and hygienically suspect.

Still, on occasion Carl did have his successes. He would often go a week, sometimes ten days, conducting interviews with witnesses and their acquaintances, gathering materials to be fingerprinted and other physical evidence, throwing everything into unlabeled freezer bags in the trunk of his city-issued car. When he was ready, he’d gather all his junk into some semblance of coherence, and sometimes wind up with a convictable suspect.

Not that he often got assigned to cases that needed brains to solve. In San Francisco, nine out of ten homicides were open books. A woman kills a man who’s beating her. A jealous guy kills a wandering girlfriend. Dope deals go bad. Gang bangs. Drunken mistakes.

Low-lifes purifying the gene pool.