John Lescroart - Hard Evidence

‘I’ve got to find May,’ Farris said.

‘Why don’t you go by where she lives?’

‘I don’t know where she lives. Owen never told me that. Getting her phone number was a major concession.’

‘How about if they just ran away, like you were saying he might have done yesterday, except that it was Owen and May together, not just him?’

‘I hate to think we’re down to that.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, I really think the running off- it’s something Owen’s outgrown. I just don’t see him doing that anymore. If anything, he was more settled, less spontaneous, since he’s been with May. She really calmed him down. I mean, for Owen, he seemed relatively at peace for the first time in his life. Since Eloise, anyway. Besides, they’ve gone away together before – and told nobody except me. But he did tell me.’

‘And this time he didn’t.’

‘Nothing.’

Hardy looked up as Frannie walked by the door to his office, holding Rebecca, singing quietly to her. He missed Farris’s next sentence.

‘I’m sorry, what was that?’

‘I said it’s getting more unlikely every day anyhow.’

‘How’s that?’

‘Well, I’m Owen’s executor and I’ve also got power of attorney. It’s Thursday now and nobody’s seen him in a week. If he ran away, even with May, he’d need money, right? And he never carried much cash.’

‘So he’d use a credit card, and you’d have found out about that?’

‘Right. I checked all his accounts this morning – so far there’s been no activity.’

Hardy wished he could say something about not giving up hope until they had some more information, something definite.

Farris cut that thought off. ‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’

The answer to that, a line from a comedy routine of the old, now-defunct Committee, a North Beach comedy troupe, was ‘Deader than hell, Bob.’

Hardy wasn’t even tempted.

Officer Patrick Resden was never going to make inspector. He was never going to make sergeant. He was fifty-one years old, a big, wheezy, friendly dog of a cop who was twenty years on the same beat.

Resden had taken the sergeant’s exam five times in the early ‘70s. Hardy had helped Glitsky study for the sergeant’s exam around the same time, but after a review of the first few chapters of the prep book, those ’study sessions’ had become the boys’ night out – Jane and Flo, respectively, staying home while their husbands improved their minds and careers. What they had really improved was their tolerance for alcohol. They knew they’d drunk enough on any given night when a question in the prep book – any question – stumped them.

Hardy had known plant life – and definitely some of his fish – that were smart enough to pass the sergeant’s exam on the second try, and Resden had flunked the thing five times.

But this did not mean he didn’t have a place on the police force. He could follow simple instructions. He did not abuse his gun or his badge. Resden was a good beat cop – his heart was in the right place and he had a lot of experience helping people out, pulling kittens out of trees, busting neighborhood bullies.

One of whom – the defendant in this case – was named Jesus Samosa. It seemed that about two months ago, Officer Resden had had occasion to reprimand Samosa when he caught him about to spraypaint a sidewalk in front of the Mission Street BART station. Instead of getting a hard-on for him, Resden had simply confiscated the can of paint and let the boy go – he was only eighteen – with a warning.

Two days later, in the street in front of the same BART station, Samosa failed to stop at the sign on Mission. His maroon ‘69 Chevy got pulled over and Resden was the citing officer. This time, Resden gave Samosa a ticket -this was evidently very funny to the passengers in the Chevy, but again, Resden simply warned everyone and let them go their way.

Now, it turned out that Jesus Samosa worked at the Doggie Diner three blocks from the BART station. About a week after the stop-sign incident, Resden and his partner, Felice Wong, decided to take their lunch at this same Doggie Diner. Resden ordered his usual couple of double burgers, double cheese – a special order. Felice was grabbing some napkins, with a clear view of the grill area, when Jesus, to the delight of his broiler mate, spit into the bun that he then placed on top of one of the double burgers.

Felice drew her gun, walked behind the counter, confiscated the burger for lab analysis and bagged Jesus Samosa on the spot.

Now this defendant, Hardy thought – this guy is going down. Hardy gave a moment’s thought to ordering an HIV test – if the guy tested positive they might be able to charge him with attempted murder. On reflection, though, that might be a little extreme, even if an Elizabeth Pullios might go for it.

As it was, they had Jesus on a couple of health and safety-code violations, misdemeanor aggravated assault, profane language and resisting arrest. The maximum penalty if he got everything was forty-five days in the county jail and fines totaling $3,115.

If the defendant’s attorney wanted to bargain, Hardy figured he would be a sport and knock the fines down to an even three grand.

After he’d talked to Ken Farris, Hardy had taken his yellow legal pad from his top drawer and wrote notes on everything he could remember relating to Owen Nash. It took him almost twenty minutes, filling two pages.

He then called Art Drysdale at his home, making it clear that he had taken no part in supplying Jeff Elliot with any information used in the Chronicle story. ‘But just between you and me, Art, my bones tell me the victim is Owen Nash. And if May Shinn is still alive, we may be looking at my murder case.’

Once again, Drysdale counseled Hardy to cool his jets and wait for the police investigation to catch up. Hardy replied that of course he would do that.

He dialed Jane, but she hadn’t been home – either out working early or spending the night in a strange place. Well, Hardy didn’t know that and it was none of his business anyway. He’d left a message.

The morning light in Hardy’s office at the Hall of Justice was especially flattering to Elizabeth Pullios. She wore a blue leather miniskirt – far enough down her leg by about an inch to still be professional if the term were loosely applied- with a tailored robin’s-egg man’s shirt made less conservative by the three-button gap at the top. A raisin-sized ruby on a thin gold chain hung to where her cleavage began. Her chestnut hair was loosely tied at the back of her neck. She knocked demurely at Hardy’s door.

‘Good work,’ she said.

He invited her in and she closed the door behind her.

‘What is?’

She placed her rear end on the corner of Hardy’s desk and pushed herself back so she could sit back with her legs crossed, showing and showing. Hardy pushed his chair back almost to the window, put his own feet up on the desk, crossed his hands behind his head and leaned against the glass. ‘What is?’ he repeated.

‘The Chronicle thing. Keeping it alive.’

‘Believe it or not, that wasn’t me.’ But then he realized that it had in fact been him who had sent Elliot on the mission that took him to Missing Persons. ‘Not completely, anyway.’

She waved him off. ‘Well, whatever, it’s still on the burner. Who killed him?’

Hardy spent a couple of minutes on Owen Nash, Farris, May Shinn, the Silicon Valley connection. ‘The bottom line, though, is that we don’t have an identified victim yet, so there’s nowhere to go. I think we’re going to need a body.’

‘Well’ – she leaned toward Hardy, both palms resting flat on Hardy’s desk, the ruby swinging out from the gap in her shirt – ‘not necessarily. You remember the Billionaire Boys Club case down in L.A.? They never found the body in that one. And you’ve got part of a body. Get some good pathologist -’