John Lescroart - Hard Evidence

‘Well, it’s just so awful, the whole thing. Especially for Celine.’ She sighed. ‘And on top of everything else.’

Dorothy spoke up. ‘Are other things hard for her too?’

‘Oh, you know, even the rich. Sometimes I think it’s almost harder for them.’

‘Why?’Jeff asked.

‘Oh, you know. All the people after their money. You never know if anyone’s sincere. I think that’s why she cares so much about Karl. I mean, before he even knew about the money, that she had money… well, he’s just always been there for her. He’d do anything for her. We all would. I think she just needs some friends she can count on, who don’t pester her. She needs a place to stay where it’s not a hotel, where she’s not Celine Nash, just a normal person.’

That’s nice,‘ Dorothy said, ’everybody needs that.‘

Mrs Franck nodded. ‘We just let her come and go. She’s got her own room – well, I guess you’ll see it when we go on up – Karl fixed it up for her especially. Lord knows, one thing this house has is enough rooms. But that’s Karl. He says this house is her house. She’s welcome even if we’re not here.’

‘Is that often?’ Jeff asked.

‘Oh, you know, with the boys competing, sometimes she’ll come down on a Thursday or Friday and we’ll all be going off for the weekend someplace – Long Beach or Las Vegas. We come back Sunday or Monday and she’ll have a dinner or something waiting for us. She’s really so great.’

The Monterey Bay Club had a listing of all the sanctioned weight-lifting events of 1992. On June 20-21, Saturday and Sunday, the Mr California regionals had been held in San Diego at the Mission Bay Inn.

Dorothy sat in a booth at the Pelican’s Nest just off the Santa Cruz boardwalk, sipping a Bloody Mary, checking the shine on her new diamond. The rain had picked up again, slanting sheets of water across the bay. Jeff was coming back from the pay telephones. He walked easily with the crutches, barely seeming to need them when he was hot on a lead like this one.

He slid into the booth and kissed her. ‘Karl Franck and his mother checked in with Len Hoeffner on Friday evening, June nineteenth. Both were listed as entrants in the pageant.’

‘So Celine wasn’t here?’

‘She might have been. She might have come down on Friday night to see them off. I’m sure there are plane records somewhere, but I don’t think Hardy’s going to need them.’

‘And she was back by Sunday.’ It wasn’t a question.

Jeff nodded. ‘And so far as the Francks knew or assumed, she was there all weekend. They weren’t even lying, as far as they knew, when they said so. She probably had a nice meal waiting for them when they got home and a story about a relaxed weekend doing nothing.’

‘Except for killing her father.’

Jeff stared out the window at the rain. ‘Except, maybe, for that.’

Hardy had gone down to pick up Frannie and Rebecca. He took them out to breakfast and then swung by their house again for another day’s clothes and baby supplies before dropping them back at her former mother-in-law’s. He probably wasn’t going to be back home all day anyway and he had some nagging notion that things could get dangerous. Maybe that was ridiculous, but he’d play it safe anyway. He’d feel more comfortable if his wife and child were out of harm’s way.

The other thing he had done was call Andy Fowler, still at Jane’s, and cancel their noon appointment to go over his trial testimony. He told him about Chomorro’s decision not to allow his line of questioning on the ‘backward’ collection of evidence.

Fowler had been low-key. ‘Listen, Diz, when you get me on the stand I’ll simply tell the truth. I did not kill Owen Nash and they haven’t proved I did. Their burden, remember. I think it’s a good idea to take the day off, get a little rest.’…Take the day off. Sure.

Now he was closing the Owen Industries security logbook. It hadn’t taken much time. He had reviewed the calls to and from Nash’s office for the two weeks prior to his death. There was one call to Celine, though it was on Monday, not Tuesday, hardly by itself a critical flaw in Celine’s testimony.

He was sitting at Ken’s desk at his office – the one so much like his own – at Owen Industries in South San Francisco. Farris had come down with his security supervisor – Gary Simpson – at eleven-thirty, then left the two men to find whatever it was Hardy was looking for.

Simpson sat, legs crossed and bored, across the desk from him. ‘Okay,’ Hardy said, ‘we’ve got one hit. You mind if we give it a listen.’

Simpson shrugged and stood up, stretching theatrically. He was a tall man in jeans and a flannel shirt. That’s what I’m here for.‘ He motioned with his head. ’Back this way.‘

They walked, Hardy following, down the red-tiled hallways and around a couple of corners. The door marked ‘Security’ was over-sized, double-locked with deadbolts. Simpson’s office was to the right inside, and there was a small anteroom with two waiting chairs, an end table and a coffee table, and, in contrast to the rest of the building, no plants anywhere. These rooms were much colder than the others. Simpson gestured for Hardy to follow him back.

Behind his desk was a walk-in vault, and Hardy waited while Simpson unlocked and opened the desk, pushed a series of buttons inside a drawer, then did the same thing on a panel next to the door to the vault.

‘High-tech,’ Hardy said.

Simpson half turned. ‘Well, we’re in the business. We ought to keep up on state of the art.’

The door opened inward. Hardy had envisioned a bunch of drawers filled with tapes, but again was confronted with an array of buttons and lights – more state of the art. Simpson sat at a console featuring innumerable LEDs and three computer terminals.

‘What’s your number, there, on the left column, for the call you want?’

Hardy, still carrying the thin logbook, opened to the page. He read out the six-digit number and Simpson entered it on the board. There was a brief wait, then a click.

‘You’re lucky,’ Simpson said. This date gets automatically erased in two days.‘

‘You want to override it so it doesn’t do that?’

‘Sure, no sweat.’ He pushed a few buttons. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘you ready?’

Hardy was surprised at the sound of Owen Nash’s voice -somehow less authoritarian than Hardy had imagined -raspy but consciously softened, Hardy thought, as though he were speaking to a child.

‘I know you’re unhappy with me,’ he said, ‘but don’t hang up, please.’

A longish pause. The digital sound reproduction was superb – Hardy could hear Celine’s breathing become more rapid.

‘All right,’ she said evenly, ‘I won’t hang up.’

‘We have to see each other,’ Nash said. ‘We need to talk about this.’

‘No. I don’t want to see you about this. I want you back -’

‘It’s happening, Celine. It’s going to happen.’

A breathy silence.

‘It can’t , Daddy, it just can’t. What about me?’

‘You’ll be fine, honey. I still love you.’

‘You don’t.’

Now it was Owen’s turn to take a beat. ‘I’ll always love you, honey. We just can’t go on… the way we have. I’ve changed. It’s different -’

‘Because of her.’

‘No, not just her. Because of me. Maybe she’s made me see it, but the change is mine, it’s my decision -’

‘I won’t let you make it.’

‘Celine…’

‘I won’t, Daddy, she can’t do this, she can’t have you -’

‘It’s not her,’ he repeated, ‘it’s me. And I have made the decision.’

‘I’ll change your mind. I know I can.’ Suddenly there was a deeper, insinuating tone. It was unusual enough that Simpson turned around to look at Hardy. ‘ You know I can.’