John Lescroart - The Mercy Rule

‘Oh, yeah. He and the judge, they were like this.’ Two fingers together. ‘Salmon Sal.’ A shake of the head, a wistful tone. ‘What happened to him, huh? But at least it was over fast. Any more time on the street, something worse might have happened.’

Hardy shot a look at his wife, went back to Mauritio. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh, you know, at the end, the last few months, the guy was a real pain. Last time I snuck him a lunch here, back in the kitchen, he wound up wanting to fight me over some bet we must have made twenty years ago. I didn’t even remember it, something about Roberto Clemente, for Christ’s sake. So I break him the news that Roberto’s been gone awhile and suddenly he’s all over me, I owe him a large one, he’s gonna kick my ass.’ Mauritio smiled over at Frannie. ‘Scuse me the language.’

‘It’s all right.’ Her brilliant smile. ‘If I hadn’t heard it before, I wouldn’t know what it meant, would I?’

Hardy figured Mauritio was halfway to abiding love for his wife. He was going on. ‘Anyway, the poor guy. He makes a scene, I kick him out, so he’s yelling at me by the back door, says he gonna tell all the guys I’m a welsher. And I just made the guy a free lunch.’ He shook his head in commiseration. ‘You knew he couldn’t help it. You couldn’t hold it against him, but you didn’t want him around. It was probably better he went out when he did. His boy did him a big favor.’

After dinner, a couple more questions.

‘So the Grotto, it burned down or something?’

‘To the ground. Saddest night of my life. Nobody could believe it.’

‘Why not?’

He shrugged. ‘I mean, the old man, the judge’s father – fire was what scared him most. We had more hydrants and safety systems than anybody. Then the one time we need ’em, they don’t work worth a damn.‘

‘It’s a universal law,’ Hardy said. ‘Where’d it start?’

A sigh. ‘Kitchen, they think. Then just took off. One of the fireman died, even. Horrible. Well’ – he clapped his hands lightly – ‘hey, enough of this. You folks eat good? I see the judge, I’ll tell him you came by.’

As soon as Frannie had taken the kids out the door to school, he was at the kitchen table. With his wide-ranging if temporary amnesia yesterday, he was almost surprised that he’d remembered to throw Jeanne Walsh’s telephone number into his briefcase. But he had.

She picked up on the second ring. There was no baby noise in the background, and she sounded more relaxed. ‘Mrs Walsh, this is Dismas Hardy again. The lawyer from San Francisco?’

‘Sure. The reward. I remember.’

Might as well feed her the sugar first. ‘That’s what I’m calling about. The reward may not be out of the picture. I’d like to ask you a couple more questions, if I may. Do you have a minute?’

‘I hope so. Brittany’s down for a nap. She’s really pretty good most of the time. I don’t know why she was so cranky yesterday. Maybe she’s teething.’

Hardy was right back with her to the days of infancy, when there was nothing else in life but your child and its health and habits. Even the prospect of a reward, while possibly interesting, couldn’t hold a candle. ‘I’m sure she’s wonderful,’ Hardy said, ‘but I did want to ask you about your mother. You said when she was in San Francisco, she was Joan Palmieri? Was that her maiden name, or was she married before?’

A nervous laugh. ‘Didn’t I say that? No, I guess not. Yeah, she was married to my dad. My natural father, not Ron.’

Hardy was getting confused with all the names. ‘Ron?’

‘Ron Singleterry.’

‘But Palmieri?’

‘Palmieri was my own maiden name.’

Okay, he thought. Getting there. ‘And was your dad’s first name Randall?’

‘Randy, yes. How did you know?’

‘And he was killed in a fire at Giotti’s Grotto in 1979?’

‘Yeah, that was my father. I was just a baby then. Well, four or five I must have been, but I don’t really remember him. That’s why we moved back up here. Mom wanted to start over, I think. It was probably a good idea. It worked out pretty well for her. Ron was a good guy.’

Hardy had been taking notes, writing it all down. ‘But you still don’t remember anyone named Sal Russo?’

‘No. I thought about it all last night, I tell you. I even called my sister, but she didn’t remember it either.’

Hardy was closing in on it. Sal had referred to Joan Singleterry’s children – plural – not to her child. And now that was confirmed. ‘Do you have other family, Jeanne?’

‘No. Well, I mean my own family, Johnny and Brittany. But otherwise there’s just my sister Margie. Margie Sanford now.’

‘Okay, one or two more, if you don’t mind. How about Mario Giotti, that name? Do you know him?’

She laughed. ‘I will if we need to.’

‘You don’t need to. You’re doing fine. The reward doesn’t depend on you knowing Mario Giotti.’

‘That’s a relief, because I don’t.’

‘Never heard of him?’

‘Nope. Sorry.’

Me, too, Hardy thought.

But he’d gotten a lot more than he’d have dared hope for even a couple of days before. He ran more names at her. Brendan or Debra McCoury. Graham Russo. George Russo. Leland and Helen Taylor. Everybody he could think of – he almost said David Freeman. You just never knew. She didn’t know any of them.

He told her to hang tight. She appeared to be the child of the Joan Singleterry they were seeking. He’d get back to her.

But what was the connection? How had Sal known Joan? He poured himself a cup of espresso, working the possibilities.

Randy Palmieri had been killed in the fire at the Grotto. The Grotto had been owned by the Giotti family until a few months after it burned down. A mysterious fire that had eluded a state-of-the-art detection and sprinkling system started in the kitchen and wiped out the whole place. Sal Russo had kept a memento of that fire with him until he died, as well as fifty thousand dollars in cash, wrapped and dated a few months later.

On the personal side, Sal’s marriage had ended at about the same time. He no longer felt noble or special or whatever it was he’d always felt, no longer had the heart to stand up to the forces represented by Leland Taylor. He didn’t deserve Helen and their wonderful children anymore. She was right to cast him off. He wouldn’t even try to see his children anymore.

He had more than failed, he had fallen.

And in the present, Sal was more and more living in his past – where now perhaps he could undo his past sins, repay his past debts, reclaim his old love. It was happening now, all of this, his life.

And it made Sal, as Mauritio had said, a pain in the ass. Perhaps more than that as his mind slipped away, as he forgot what he was supposed to keep hidden and secret, as he remembered what he’d promised to forget.

Perhaps Sal had become a danger.

At the fire department office the same efficient woman helped him. ‘The hose-and-ladder strap was something else, wasn’t it?’

Mild chagrin. He’d been caught in his fib. ‘I really hate to admit this,’ he said, ‘but the truth is that I’m a lawyer. I was trying to be slick. It’s an occupational hazard.’

It rolled right off her. ‘So it wasn’t your friend’s belt?’

‘No.’ He got serious. ‘I found this out since last night. I believe the strap came from a fire that killed a man, Randall Palmieri. He’s on your wall out there. I wondered if I could talk to your Widows and Orphans person, find out a little how that works.’

‘You can just keep talking to me,’ she said. ‘I’m the information officer.’

‘I want to verify the identity of the man’s offspring. There’s a substantial reward involved. I think maybe they could use it. If a fireman dies on the job, I suppose there’s some kind of pension or settlement?’