John Lescroart - The Mercy Rule

But Glitsky believed that it shouldn’t be her call. It should go to trial, to a jury. That was how the system worked.

The DA sat back in her chair, fingers at her lips. ‘You know… Abe… I would think you’d be a little more sensitive to this issue. Didn’t your wife suffer terribly?’

His scar tightened through his lips. ‘I didn’t kill my wife. I didn’t help kill her.’

She came forward in her chair. ‘I didn’t say that. But she must have been in great pain.’

Glitsky, too, was on the front six inches of his chair. ‘She was taking drugs. She said they helped. She wanted to live as long as she could. She didn’t want to die.’

‘But what if she had wanted to die, Abe? Wouldn’t you have helped her? Wouldn’t you have wanted to?’

‘Of course I would have wanted to. I probably would have.’

‘And yet you don’t believe that’s what happened here, with Graham Russo and his father? You think what he did was wrong.’

He hung his head. Arguing with Pratt was like trying to move a cloud by pushing on it. ‘No,’ he said with all the patience he could muster, ‘I think what he did was illegal.’

She must have thought she’d convinced him. She put her elbows on the desk and spread her palms as though releasing a little bird she had between them. ‘Then the law should be changed.’

David Freeman’s associates called his conference room the Solarium. Under a glass-and-steel enclosure, rubber trees, ficus, lemons proliferated. Visible through the forest, outside, was an enclosed and landscaped courtyard, and this added to the greenhouse feel.

Dismas Hardy sat under the foliage at an elliptical mahogany table with Michelle Tinker. Demure to the point of shyness, Michelle possessed what Hardy knew to be a brilliant legal mind – far more focused, he thought, than his own. Freeman kept her on because, even though she was tongue tied before juries, she had a seemingly boundless aptitude for work and minutiae. And that’s exactly what Hardy had told Freeman he needed after he’d come in this morning.

He was going to be working with Graham Russo, and that case was going to take some significant portion of the time he was now giving to Tryptech. Would Freeman mind letting him borrow a workhorse who would take off some of the Tryptech load? Freeman, not very convincing hiding his pleasure at Hardy’s decision to take the criminal case, had been glad to comply.

Michelle had both an accounting and a law degree. In her mid-thirties, she was married with no children. Once you got beyond the shyness, she was friendly and well spoken, totally professional. Hardy knew Dyson Brunei would get along well with her, and she jumped at the invitation to assist with Tryptech. The lawsuit was all numbers and paper – she’d never see a jury, possibly not even a judge.

It was nearly five o’clock and Hardy had been getting her up to speed for the better part of two hours, outlining the issues, trying to acquaint her with the players. If Michelle’s questions were any indication, she seemed to have absorbed most of it.

His files were in cardboard boxes that he’d carried with him down to the Solarium. Michelle was going to be reading them over the next several days. This was authorized full-time billing.

‘So what about your role?’

Hardy smiled. ‘I’ll keep my finger in, but I’ve got other commitments, and this thing has been eating up all my time – it’s way too much for one person to handle.’

‘But you’ll still be on it? I’m reporting to you, not David?’

Hardy nodded. ‘The buck still stops here.’

‘Where?’

They turned to see Freeman, just back from court, a sartorial mess as usual, standing in the doorway. ‘Where does the buck stop? With you? You stealing my associates?’

Hardy nodded. ‘As we discussed. Michelle’s going to help me out with Tryptech. She said she had the time.’

Out of force of habit Freeman glared at them both, but then he focused on Michelle and his look softened. ‘Watch this man,’ he said, ‘he’s unorthodox and dangerous.’

Freeman reached into his breast pocket and extracted a cigar. Thoughtfully, he bit off the end, spit the tip into his hand, and deposited it into one of the potted plants. Finally, he spoke to Hardy. ‘When’s the last time you saw Graham Russo?’

‘After lunch,’ Hardy replied. ‘Couple of hours ago in jail. Why?’

Freeman was famous for his dramatic flair in the courtroom. He played it out now, lighting his cigar, taking his time, exhaling a long plume. ‘Nobody’s called you?’

Hardy didn’t like the sound of this. ‘No, nobody’s called me. Quit the games, David, what’s going on? Is Graham all right?’ He was up out of his chair.

‘I’d say he’s probably better than the last time you saw him. The word at the Hall was they were letting him go. I’d’ve thought somebody would’ve called you.‘

‘In a startling development today, District Attorney Sharron Pratt has announced in a special press briefing that she has declined to file charges against Graham Russo, the lawyer and former federal court clerk who’d been arrested in the apparent assisted suicide of his father, Sal.’

Hardy sat in the Little Shamrock at the far end of the bar, watching the television above it. It was still light outside the wide front windows, though traffic had thinned out on Lincoln Boulevard. Frannie would be here soon to meet him for the sacred and traditional Date Night – nearly every Wednesday since they’d been married. They would most often meet at the Shamrock – Hardy would drive halfway home, Frannie would cab it halfway downtown – and go someplace for dinner, maybe a movie, some live music.

Hardy sipped his stout and glanced up again at the tube.

Pratt’s face filled the screen, the six-second sound bite all the pols lived for. ‘I’ve read the file on this case and the autopsy revealed an advanced, irreversible brain tumor. Mr Russo was in great pain with no hope of recovery, and whoever helped ease him from this mortal coil should be congratulated, not prosecuted.’

Frannie was suddenly at his elbow, a married kiss on the cheek, pulling up the stool next to him as the television reeled her in.

The pretty young newscaster was continuing. ‘Right-to-die groups across the country have already begun applauding the DA’s action, while police officials here in the city refused to comment on Graham Russo’s arrest or subsequent release. Russo’s attorney, Dismas Hardy, who denied his client had killed anybody, said Mr Russo had no plans to sue the city for false arrest, so that may be the end of this episode, but sources at the Hall of Justice say they wouldn’t be too sure of that.’

‘That would be you,’ Frannie said. ‘Dismas Hardy, not the sources at the Hall of Justice.’

‘That’s me,’ he agreed. ‘Fame and glory.’

But the story wasn’t over. The screen widened to include the Serious Anchor. ‘One thing seems certain, though, Donna – the district attorney’s controversial decision will inflame the already heated national debate over assisted suicide.’

‘That’s a good bet, Phil. This was a political broadside by Sharron Pratt. No doubt of it. It’s going to have ripple effect.’

Phil nodded sagely and met the camera’s eye. ‘And meanwhile, our Bay Area Action News team has learned that the state attorney general’s office has not ruled out its own investigation into Sal Russo’s death. Graham Russo is a free man tonight, but who can say for how long?’

‘Who indeed, Phil?’

Hardy stood and went around behind the bar. He reached up and turned off the television. ‘How can there be so many idiots? Where do they come from?’

‘How’d you get Graham out of jail so fast?’ Frannie asked.