John Lescroart - The Mercy Rule

He reached across the table and took her hand again. ‘Who can say how much pain he was in? And even if he was, what if he wanted to endure it for some reason? What if it wasn’t his decision to die just then, at that moment? That’s the issue.’

That was her Mario, she thought, ever the judge. Always considering the issues, the law.

‘That’s why they want to find out who was there,’ he said.

Hardy figured out how much time he’d spent outdoors on this beautiful day. He’d walked through the fog near his house this morning at a little after seven – call it four minutes to get to where he’d parked the night before. Then he’d stood outside Graham’s house for a total of about two minutes, taking in the sunlight, birdsong, smell of blossoms, talking to Lanier. Thirty seconds walking back to his car at one-fifteen. Two minutes getting from the downtown garage to his office.

Now it was seven forty-five and the sun was a recent memory, the dusk just settling on the buildings around the office. Hardy stood at his window overlooking Sutter Street, his tie undone, coat off, eyes burning. Between Graham Russo and Tryptech, he’d already put in a thirteen-hour day and in that time he’d spent all but eight and a half minutes indoors.

The deposition with Terry Lowitz of the Port of Oakland had ended fifteen minutes ago. They’d had sandwiches brought up at five-thirty when it looked as though it was going to go on for another couple of hours. He’d called Frannie and told her he was going to be late. She was less than thrilled.

Lowitz was a maintenance supervisor whose skills as a raconteur were, Hardy thought, woefully inadequate. It had taken Hardy three tries to get the guy to put his name on the record properly. Mr Lowitz was of the general opinion that the Port of Oakland had never in its history allowed one machine of any kind to run for an instant without being in perfect repair, especially the loading transoms.

Over the course of five hours Hardy had brought up perhaps thirty examples of accidents at the Port, large or small, that might have been attributed to faulty equipment, but Mr Lowitz, when he answered intelligibly at all, had an alternate interpretation for every mishap. He was not going to lose his job by criticizing his employer. Ever.

Hardy walked back to his desk and, without thinking, picked up one of the three darts that lay upon it and flung it at the dartboard across the room. A nanosecond after he released it, he remembered that he was theoretically in the middle of a record round and was shooting for the ‘3.’

The dart hit smack in the middle of the ‘20,’ David Freeman appeared in his doorway with a bottle of wine and some glasses, and the telephone rang.

He threw up his hands. ‘Life,’ he said, ‘it happens all at once.’

Freeman would wait and the phone wouldn’t, so he grabbed at it. ‘Yo.’

‘Hardy. Abe.’

‘By God, I think it is. You sound just like yourself.’

‘It’s a disguise for people who think I’m somebody else.’

‘So what’s up? You’re going to say Graham Russo.’

Freeman came over and put the glasses down on Hardy’s desk, then lifted a haunch onto the corner of it.

Over the phone Hardy heard his prediction come true. ‘I’m calling about Graham Russo.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘This is a courtesy call. You must have impressed Lanier and Evans with your manners. I asked them if they minded if I call you and they said no.’

‘They’re really quite perceptive individuals,’ Hardy said, ‘for police persons. So what about Graham?’

Glitsky told him.

Freeman repeated it, making sure he’d heard it right. ‘Fifty thousand dollars in wrapped bills? Four complete sets of early-fifties baseball cards?’

‘That’s it.’

The old man drank off most of his glass of red wine. Hardy noticed the world outside his window, that night had completely fallen.

He looked at his watch. Eight-fourteen. He had to stop now, call it a day, get home. He’d get a call later if Graham got booked tonight, and he’d have to come down to the jail. He didn’t feel he would survive without a little time off.

David Freeman, on the other hand, had no family or consuming interests outside of the law. He had lived this way for all of his adult life and now, after his own full day in court, he was settling down with a newly filled glass, enthralled with the details of yet another case. It never ended for Freeman – he never wanted it to. ‘So it’s not an assisted suicide after all?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean fifty grand plus the cards, taken from the old man’s safe. This is not what we call altruism. He offed the guy to get the money.’

Hardy waved that off. ‘I don’t think that happened, David. You’ve got to know him.’

‘I don’t need to know him if I’ve got the evidence. If the evidence says he did it, then he did it.’

‘You always say that.’

‘That’s because it’s always true.’ Freeman had settled himself on the couch. He’d brought the bottle over and put it on the coffee table in front of him. He poured himself more wine, swirled it in his glass, sloshed it around in his mouth, the connoisseur. ‘Why don’t you take off your coat and stay awhile? Share this excellent claret with me. Take a break, for Christ’s sake, you’ve been at it all day. This new case of yours has all the makings.’

Hardy threw another dart. The hell with the personal best game, he thought. He’d get it some other time. ‘Believe it or not, spending another hour or two here in the middle of the night discussing a case I’m not even taking is not my idea of a break. I’m thinking about going home, saying hello to my wife before she leaves me, maybe kissing my kids good-night.’

Freeman pursed his lips with distaste. ‘Aren’t you curious about the money?’

‘There’s an explanation for the money.’

‘That’s my point. Don’t you want to know what it is?’

‘I’ll catch it on the news.’ He had walked around his desk and grabbed his suit coat from the back of his chair where he’d hung it, and now, on his way to the door, he was pulling it on. He stopped at the doorway and picked up his briefcase. ‘You want to lock up and get the lights when you leave? The landlord here’s a real tyrant.’

Freeman picked up his bottle and got himself to his feet. ‘No, I’ll go down to my office.’

His brown suit looked like he’d taken a shower with it on, then slept in it. There were half a dozen rusted dots around his shirt collar where he’d cut himself shaving. The tie could have been cut from.a tablecloth at an Italian restaurant. He was half a head shorter than Hardy and thirty pounds heavier, all of it in the gut. Nevertheless, David Freeman – the eyes, the manic energy – was impressive, even intimidating.

He came to a halt abruptly in front of Hardy, seemed to consider for a moment, then poked a finger into his chest. ‘You know, this life isn’t dress rehearsal. If you’ve got a vision of what really happened with Sal Russo, the boy’s got a right to hear it. You took him on, so you owe him that, however busy you think you are. And here’s a free tip: you might try fitting in a little fun.’

‘Like you do?’

‘Exactly! Like I do. I have fun all the time.’

‘You work all the time.’

Freeman lit up histrionically. ‘I love my work! I don’t do anything I don’t want to do.’

‘I hate to say this, David, but you don’t have kids.’

The old man squinted up at him. ‘Well, you do, so what?’

‘So I don’t do what I want to do anymore. I do what I have to do. That’s my life. That’s reality. I don’t even think about what I want to do.’