John Lescroart - The Mercy Rule

But she was at eye level with that painting once again. It reeled her in and held her for another moment. Could that be a baseball mitt – that smudge – next to the fishing boy? (If it was, in fact, a boy fishing.) Was there something else she was missing? Was she missing anything at all?

She didn’t know. The other boxes weren’t going away. She’d better get to them. With a last glance at the painting she headed back to the bedroom.

At one-thirty that afternoon, just as Sarah was getting to Sal Russo’s place, Hardy waited for the guard to open the door to Visiting Room B in San Francisco’s jail. It was a relatively new building directly behind the Hall of Justice, only open for business for the past year or so. The new attorney visiting rooms were a good deal larger than those in the old jail had been, but the size didn’t make much difference. In spite of its nickname among law enforcement personnel – the Glamour Slammer – it still wasn’t anyplace you wanted to be.

They hadn’t brought Graham down yet. Hardy asked the guard to leave the door open and walked the six steps over to the window. Six whole steps – the place was extravagant in its roominess! And the window, though glass block, was a definite improvement.

In the old jail the visiting rooms had essentially been closets, six by eight feet, with no ventilation and one overhead light bulb. A table and three wooden chairs took up all the space. Through a square pane of wire-reinforced glass set into the wall, you could see inmates and guards passing in the jail’s corridor. The inmates would slam the window every once in a while as you talked to your client.

Hardy didn’t think that could happen here. No prisoners walked down this hallway. The corridor outside was a kind of catwalk around the administrative rooms and holding cells, and with the glass block there was a lot of light, especially on a sunny day like this one. It wasn’t exactly cheery, but it wasn’t a dungeon either.

He turned away from the window, preparing himself. It was always a jolt, the initial meeting behind bars of a person you’d known in civilian life.

In a couple of minutes Graham Russo was going to walk in here and he wasn’t going to look the same. He was going to be in an orange jumpsuit, perhaps shackled. Some small piece of his soul was going to be gone. That would make Graham different in some fundamental way, and Hardy didn’t want to see it.

He put his hands in his pockets and waited.

They’d started out sitting across the table from each other, but Hardy was up and pacing now. Graham’s story had changed in another, and particularly unsettling, way. He seemed to be having trouble believing that Sergeant Evans had actually arrested him. ‘I never thought she’d do that.’

‘Why not? She’s a cop. That’s what they do.’

‘Yeah, but…’ He paused, considering his words.

‘But what?’

Coming out with it. ‘I was playing a little head game with her. I thought she’d bought it. I didn’t think she’d keep looking. Not at me. Not after I opened up and cooperated.’

‘But you didn’t tell the truth.’

Graham shrugged. ‘I guessed wrong.’

‘About what?’

‘About whether she cared about the truth, I guess. I thought she’d believe me , not the words so much.’

This was close enough to how Hardy felt to make him feel uncomfortable. ‘So what about now?’

‘What about now?’

‘You and me, the truth, all that silly stuff.’

‘I haven’t lied to you.’

‘As a matter of fact, you did. You said you weren’t close to your father.’

‘But I’d already told the police that. I… it didn’t seem like a big thing. I wanted you to help me out, and if I came across as inconsistent, you’d doubt me from the git-go. I screwed up, I guess. I’m sorry.’

Hardy closed his eyes for a moment. ‘Okay, so let’s get clear on this. Despite what you told me and the police – the police two times – you were close to your father?’

Graham nodded. ‘I figured it would be easier to just say I wasn’t.’

‘Easier how?’

‘That’s obvious, isn’t it? What everyone would think.’

Hardy stopped pacing. ‘You know what Mark Twain said? He said the best part about telling the truth is you don’t have to remember when you lied.’

‘I know. All this just came at me, Diz. I didn’t have any time to think about it. I said I’m sorry.’

‘I’m sorry too.’ Hardy wanted to get it straight. ‘So you were afraid that if you admitted you and your father had reconciled, people would draw the conclusion that you helped him kill himself?’

‘Yeah.’

‘But you didn’t? Help him kill himself?’

Graham had his huge hands folded on the table. He looked down at them, then back up at Hardy. ‘No. I’ve told you that.’

Hardy came up to the table, laid a palm down on it. ‘Okay, you told me that. But at this point, how am I supposed to know when you’re telling the truth?’

‘This one isn’t a lie.’

‘You didn’t kill your father?’

‘No.’

‘You didn’t help him kill himself? Talk him through it? Sit there with him? Any of that? Because if you did, it’s going to make a big difference. We’ve got a whole ’nother ball game.‘

‘No, I didn’t do that.’

‘You weren’t there on Friday at all?’

Again, the maddening hesitation.

‘Graham?’ Hardy slammed the table and his client jerked backward. ‘Jesus, what’s to think about? You were there or you weren’t.’

‘I was thinking about something else.’

‘Don’t. Keep your mind on what I’m asking you about. You think you can do that?’

Hardy pulled his chair out again and sat in it. ‘Okay.’ He modulated his voice. He wasn’t here to rebuke his client, but he had to get a handle on the truth. ‘Okay, Graham, let’s talk a minute about you and me. You’re a lawyer, so you know this stuff, but when you hired me the other day, I became your attorney. After that, anything we say to each other is privileged. Like now. Clear?’

‘Right.’

‘So I’ve got to know what happened with you and your dad. All of it. I’ll take it with me to my grave, but I’ve got to know so I can help you.’

Graham slid his chair back a few inches and folded his arms across his chest, his sculpted face impassive. His eyes scanned the room, came back to Hardy. ‘How long am I going to be here?’ he finally asked.

The abrupt segue – frustrating as it might be – was no surprise. Hardy’s experience with people who unexpectedly found themselves in jail was that their attention span lost a lot of linkage. ‘I don’t know.’

This was the exact truth. In spite of Glitsky’s warning the previous evening, nobody had arrested Graham until this morning. Evans and Lanier had discovered the safe-deposit money late in the afternoon – too late, according to Glitsky, to go to the district attorney and get an arrest warrant.

Then, last night Graham had neither been home nor at his paramedic job. Concerned that he might flee, the two inspectors had arrested him without a warrant when he opened his door to say hello. So the DA wasn’t yet involved in the case, and this meant that the exact charge – beyond simple murder – had yet to be determined.

Hardy went on with the explanation. ‘Your arraignment is tomorrow and we can’t get bail set until then, so you’re here at least overnight. Assuming I can get you reasonable bail, which maybe I can’t, you could be out tomorrow.’ He paused. ‘And if they’re not going for special circumstances.’

This got Graham’s complete attention. ‘What do you mean?’ The fingers spiked at his hair. ‘Jesus Christ, what are you talking about?’