John Lescroart - A Plague of Secrets

“Which means?”

“It means those clothes are at her home at seven the next morning when Bracco and Schiff show up, and luminol’s going to show the blood, even if she couldn’t see it.”

“All right.”

“All right. So it didn’t show up.”

“What’s the second scenario?”

“She sees blood and has to dump her clothes. But the problem with that is she picked up the kids promptly at three.”

“So she either brought a change with her-”

“Not.”

“No, I agree. Or she… what? Went home first and changed?”

Glitsky shook his head. “No time for that. And besides which, the maid says she didn’t come home first.”

“So what’s that leave?”

“That’s the question.”

“All the people who alibi her could be lying.”

“That’s true.”

“But you don’t think so?”

Glitsky nodded. “Not that it couldn’t happen, but they wouldn’t have known what they were covering for when they said it, so it’s unlikely.”

“So what does this all mean?”

“She wasn’t inside. I’m okay with no fingerprints, no DNA, all that. Hard, but doable if you’re careful. But if she was there and killed him, she got blood on herself, that’s all there is to it.”

“You know what, it’s good to see you into this.” She put her hand on his leg.

He turned to face her. “I’m starting to believe, hope, whatever, that Zack’s going to be all right.” He leaned forward and rapped on the coffee table. “Knock on wood. Anyway, so maybe I’m not hopeless. Maybe there’s something I can do to make sure they don’t get blown away on the Vogler side of the trial too.”

“Is the evidence better on that?”

“Oh, yeah. No question, basically. But still, if they left anything out, maybe I can help them get it back in.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Shore up if there’s any other weak spots. Whatever they might need.”

Treya sat silently for another minute, her hand resting on his leg. “So if the judge dismisses the Levon side, then what?”

“Nothing, really, except that Diz looks good for a media minute, which actually lasts only about thirty seconds.”

“No. I mean about Levon.”

“What about him?”

“Well, technically, wouldn’t he be an open case again?”

Abe’s mouth tightened up in concentration. “Not really. I mean, even Diz thinks she looks good for it, even if the DA can’t…” He ground down to a stop, met his wife’s eyes.

“Except,” Treya said, “she had no blood on her, did she? She never went inside. Which means somebody else was in there and killed him, doesn’t it?”

At around nine o’clockthe next morning Hardy “no-commented” his way through the crowd of reporters who accosted him as he tried to sneak into the back door of the Hall of Justice. He was in relatively high spirits, having slept well for a trial day-waking up without an alarm at five-thirty as opposed to the more usual three or four.

Even though neither Kathy West nor Harlen Fisk had shown up at the truncated morning session of the trial yesterday, the powers that be had determined that a metal detector was still a necessity. So a line of spectators and more reporters snaked for fifty or sixty feet outside of Department 25. Upon laying eyes on it Hardy was about to backtrack and take his shortcut behind the courtrooms when he heard a familiar voice call his name and, turning, was somewhat surprised to see Fisk striding toward him.

The normally hale and hearty face seemed today to have an underlying pallor, and dark circles under his eyes spoke of a lack of sleep, but if Hardy had a sister on trial for murder, he thought he might lose a few zz’s himself. He stepped into the line and extended his hand. “Hey, Harlen. Got the trial bug, do you?”

He tried a smile that mostly failed. “Maybe some of that, Diz. But mostly I wanted to ask you, after yesterday, why can’t Jackman just drop the Preslee side of this thing?”

“Careful, Harlen, your politics are showing. The short answer is that Stier’s picked this fight for them and they’re in it. What I am hoping is that maybe Braun’ll do it for them.”

“She can do that?”

“She can grant my motion to dismiss when Stier’s done with his case. If I can convince her that no reasonable juror could convict on the Preslee count with this evidence.”

“What’s it going to depend on?”

Hardy chortled, leaned in closer to whisper. “In theory, careful weighing of the evidence. In fact, pretty much whim.”

“That’s heartening.”

“Welcome to Superior Court. But in truth, I think we might actually have a chance. There really isn’t anything that proves she killed Levon.”

Harlen nodded. “This whole thing is a mockery, if you want my opinion. Always has been.”

“I agree.”

“And if Braun does drop Levon, isn’t that saying Maya didn’t do it?”

“Well, not exactly. It means they can’t prove she did it.”

“So what do they do then?”

“Who?”

“The police. The people investigating his murder.”

Hardy’s grin had a sardonic twist to it. “Again, we’re up against theory versus reality. In theory the police should start looking for more proof, but there isn’t any that I’ve seen. So then, still in theory, they should revisit the investigation and see if they might trip over another suspect somewhere along the way. In reality, since the cops believe that Maya in fact did kill Levon-”

“That’s insane,” Harlen interrupted. “I know she didn’t do that.”

This stopped Hardy. “If you do, tell me how.”

The supervisor, too, hesitated for a second. “What I mean is my sister isn’t hitting somebody on the head with a cleaver, Diz. It just flat couldn’t happen.”

“I’m not saying I disagree with you. It’s a stretch for me too. But the cops think that’s what happened, even though she avoided all traces of blood, which is a pretty good party trick if she did. Anyway, the bottom line is that in reality, Braun dismisses Levon and nobody’s going to do a damn thing about it. They figure they’ll get her on Dylan anyway. But the good news-and this really is good, Harlen-is if Levon gets dropped, it’s no longer Specials.” By this Hardy meant special circumstances-mandated by multiple murder-and because of which Maya would be facing life in prison without the possibility of parole. Without Levon, life without was going to be off the table.

But Harlen didn’t take much solace in that. “I don’t want her to go down at all,” he said. “That’s why I turned her on to you in the first place. I never intended for this to happen. You were supposed to stop it from getting to here.”

Hardy had seen this before, the family becoming adversarial to the defense as the trial progressed. Still, Harlen was a long-standing colleague-just short of being a personal friend-and the accusation stung. “Well”-Hardy’s decent mood by now completely leached away-“I hope you know I’m doing all I can to keep that from happening.”

“I know that. I didn’t mean-”

“Yeah, you did. It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay, Diz.” Harlen swallowed, took a deep breath. “I tell you, these fuckers are killing all of us. Joel and I almost had it out-I mean actual fists-last time we saw each other. He said I was ratting him out with the grand jury. You ever testify for one of those?”

“Yeah. But I wasn’t a target.”

“Well, here’s the good news. Neither am I. Or they tell me that’s good news, but you ask me, make me a target anytime.”

“So you can take the Fifth, right?”

“Not that I’ve got anything to hide, really, but it would be a nice option. Instead of letting Glass, last time he got me on the stand, rip me a new one. Then he starts on my tax returns for like ten years ago. And how do I account for this? And how did I really make that? And how do I prove that my sister and I were not actual partners in BBW, and that the dope money isn’t really what got Joel’s real estate stuff started, or at least bailed him out after nine eleven.”