John Lescroart - Hard Evidence

Glitsky was gentle. ‘Why don’t you tell us how you mean it?’

Farris sat back. He took a deep breath and blew out a stream of air. ‘Time was, used to be every six months or so Owen would do something to make you hate him, or hate yourself. He was like this, this force , where he’d get a notion to go do something and goddamn if anything was going to stop him – not his friends, not his family, not his responsibilities.

‘He had his devils, so I never got inclined to try and stop him. His wife, Eloise, died in a fire in their house back in the fifties. He couldn’t get back in to save her, barely pulled out their child.’ Farris paused, remembering. ‘So he had this guilt over that. From time to time he didn’t feel worthy of all his success and he’d duck out from under it, leave it all for me to run.

‘Other times, just the opposite, he’d figure, “Well, goddamn, here I am, the great Owen Nash, and if I want to go to Bali for a month, let the mortals handle it. They’ll appreciate me more when I get back.” ’

But Glitsky wanted to keep to his line of questioning. ‘So he went once to New Orleans, another time to Bali…?’

‘But that’s just it. He didn’t have a favorite place, at least one that he ran to. We’ve got this place together outside Taos, no phones, no heat, that’s served us the last five or six years, but I was up there – flew up on Friday night – and he wasn’t.’

Strout pulled his long legs in under him and sat up straighter. “Scuse me,‘ he said quietly, ’but it seems the only thing tyin‘ this here hand to Owen Nash is the karate.’

Farris scanned the room. If he was looking for comfort, it was the wrong setting – the yellow vinyl couch, the institutional green walls. A near-dead plant and some artificial ones. ‘I don’t know if he ever broke a finger. I doubt he’d say if he had.’

‘You mean doing karate, breaking a board, something like that?’ Hardy asked.

Farris nodded. ‘That circus stuff, breaking boards, that’s Owen. If he was showing off for some woman… hell, for anybody, he could break his whole hand and never mention it. One of his conceits was he didn’t feel pain like the rest of us.’

Hardy sat forward at the change of tone. This guy might love Owen Nash, but that wasn’t all he felt.

‘The little finger on this hand has two obviously healed breaks,’ Strout said, ‘that were never set.’

‘That sounds more like Owen.’

Strout straightened up in his chair, laced his fingers and stuck his arms out until his knuckles cracked. ‘Well, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘this doesn’t move me any further along in the line of identification. We could run a DNA scan, but without a sample of what we know to be Mr Nash’s tissue, it wouldn’t prove anything.’

Everyone sat in silence, all but Strout back in their seats. Farris still sat forward, eyes turned inward, trying to come up with something to settle the question. There was a knock on the door, and Sixto poked his head in. ‘There’s a Celine Nash out here to see Mr Farris.’

The woman’s startling blue eyes were red and puffed, dark circles under them as if she hadn’t slept in several days. Her mascara had run over too much makeup. In a black suit, black nylons, black gloves – even black onyx earrings – she was elegantly turned out, but she’d run her hands through her ash-colored hair too often, and it straggled in uneven shanks to her shoulders.

She came forward and hugged Farris, choking back a sob, and he held her for half a minute, patting her back. ‘It’s okay, honey, it’s okay. We still don’t know.’

She pulled back slightly, took Farris’s pocket handkerchief out and dabbed at her eyes. She briefly held herself to him again. Hardy saw her close her eyes as though gathering her strength. Then she turned to the other men. ‘Is one of you the coroner?’

Strout stepped forward. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘I’m sorry, but I thought Ken said…’ She looked around as though lost. ‘I mean, when I heard coroner, I just assumed…’

‘No, ma’am, we just don’t know yet. You might see if you recognize this.’ Strout proffered the small ring box.

Celine stared at the ring for a moment. ‘What is this?’

‘It was on the hand,’ Strout said.

She took it from the box, looking at him quizzically. ‘But Daddy didn’t wear this ring. Ken, Daddy only wore Mom’s ring, didn’t he?’

‘I already told them that.’

The handkerchief went back to her eyes. She held it there a minute, applying some pressure. ‘Are you all right?’ Hardy asked. He moved forward.

Celine had gone a little pale. She gave Hardy a half-smile, but her eyes went back to Strout. ‘Well, then, this couldn’t be my father.’

Glitsky, in his softest voice, asked her when the last time was she had seen her father. Her eyes narrowed for an instant, and Hardy thought he saw a flash of resistance, perhaps even fear. ‘Why? I’m sorry, but who are you?’

Farris broke in and introduced everyone, after which Glitsky explained, ‘He may have gotten the ring after you’d seen him.’

She nodded, accepting that. ‘I don’t remember exactly. Two weeks ago, maybe. But he didn’t have this ring on then – he wouldn’t have worn it anyway. This just isn’t him.’

Farris, up beside her, looked at it again and shrugged. ‘He wasn’t much of a jewelry person.’

‘All right,’ Strout said. ‘It was worth a try. Thank y’all for your time.’

After he’d escorted them to the door, Strout shambled back, hands in his pockets, to Hardy and Glitsky. ‘It might be Owen Nash,’ he said simply. ‘Off the record, of course, but it might be. I’ll keep y’all informed.’

The garage had Glitsky’s car repaired and ready to go for him, so Hardy found himself walking alone through the parking lot at 5:45, ready to head for the Little Shamrock, where he was meeting Frannie. The fog, which had clung to downtown all day, had lifted, or moved west with the breeze off the Bay; the sky overhead was a cloudless evening blue.

Most of the staff at the Hall of Justice had gotten off at five, and the lot was about half empty. Two rows down from where Hardy was parked, Ken Farris sat in the driver’s seat of a Chrysler LeBaron convertible with its top down. Hardy slowed down and finally stopped.

Farris was staring into the distance, arms crossed over his chest, unmoving. He might have been a statue. He’d left Strout’s office with Celine Nash nearly forty-five minutes ago, and he was still in the parking lot? Maybe she had stayed and they had talked awhile. Still, Hardy found it odd. The man wasn’t even blinking. Maybe he was sitting up, dead.

Hardy crossed a couple of rows of parking places. He got to within ten feet of the LeBaron before Farris moved. It was a slight shift, but Hardy knew he was in view now.

‘I saw you sitting here so still,’ he said. ‘I wondered if you were all right.’

The mask gave way to a self-deprecating smile. ‘Relative term, “all right”. I guess I’m all right.’

Hardy gave him half a wave and had started to walk away, when Farris called his name. He came back to the car. ‘You know, Celine mentioned something. I don’t know. It might be relevant.’

Hardy cocked his head. ‘You wouldn’t be a lawyer, would you, Mr Farris?’

A flash of teeth. ‘Why would you think that?’

‘Well, defining “all right” as a relative term. Something you might know as relevant. Those are lawyer words.’

Farris stuck out a hand. ‘Good hunch. Call me Ken, would you. Stanford, ’55. But I never practiced, other than being counsel for Owen.‘

‘Full-time job?’

‘And then some. Now I’m COO of Owen Industries. Owen’s CEO. Electronics, components, looking into HDTV.’