John Lescroart - The Mercy Rule

‘I’m listening,’ Drysdale said.

Strout ticked off reasons on his fingers. ‘One, he’d never used the site before, the inside of his wrist. Two, his blood alcohol was point one oh – pretty drunk – hittin’ the vein on the first try was dang good shootin‘. Three, the needle wasn’t in him. It was sitting on the table there. Isn’t that right, Abe?’

Glitsky nodded in agreement and Drysdale asked what the last fact meant.

‘It means Sal Russo shot himself up and remained conscious long enough to withdraw the needle. Except you got eight or more milligrams of morphine goin’ IV, on top of a point one oh alcohol, most people, time they got the plunger all the way down, they’re at least in shock. The needle might fall out when consciousness went, but it don’t get itself put neatly back on the table. The cap doesn’t get itself put back on the syringe, that’s for damn sure.‘

Drysdale chewed on it for a moment. ‘If I’m on a jury, those three taken together, that’s beyond reasonable doubt.’

‘I don’t know,’ Strout replied, true to form. ‘It might be, but it don’t have to be, which is what I said all along.’

The photographer had left to develop his film. Fearing they’d be interrupted if they stayed on Edgewood, Graham and Michael Cerrone had spent the afternoon and evening at Modena, an upscale Italian deli on Clement Street, sharing two bottles of ten-year-old Gold Label Ruffino Chianti. Now they were no longer strangers. In seven hours Cerrone felt he’d captured the soul of his subject on tape.

Cerrone had come out to California with high expectations – a cover, after all, was not a daily occurrence, even for a senior editor. But the interview had exceeded his hopes by far, both in scope and in human drama.

The story had everything: Russo’s background as a bonus athlete cut down in his prime by injury, a brilliant law student, a clerkship with a federal judge. Then chucking it all to give his dream one last try, only to fail again; and only, in turn, to have that noble effort ostracize him from the legal community. And now there was the fallout from the murder charge that had been summarily dropped: even his part-time employer wouldn’t keep Graham on.

But Cerrone thought the personal side was even more compelling. Although it was nowhere on the public record, he learned that privately Gil Soma wanted Graham’s head on a platter. The state prosecutor had been Graham’s office mate at the federal courthouse. Graham had told him that in Soma’s eyes he was far worse than a mere murderer – he was a traitor, to be hunted and brought down.

On the other side was the picture of a talented and sensitive hero, reconciling, after years, with his father, who then became terminally ill. Graham had confided to Cerrone that over the past two difficult years, his father had been the only person who’d accepted him, who loved him. The only person keeping Graham from being utterly alone.

Of course he’d taken care of him. Though he didn’t admit to knowing the source of the morphine, he had often given him his shots.

Cerrone fell short of getting the coup, the confession, but what he had was almost better – it played into his ‘hook’ perfectly. The issue of the week was going to be assisted suicide – the agony of the decisions confronting everyone stepping through this emotional minefield. Cerrone would write his story so that the conclusion was obvious.

Graham had done the right thing. His father wanted to end his life, but he needed support, someone to hold his hand; at the last moment he was afraid of being alone. He would choose his own time, but Graham, his dutiful, perhaps prodigal, son, would help him if need be.

This, Cerrone was sure, was what had happened. And the beauty and pathos of it was that there was no way that Graham could own up to what he’d done, not if he ever wanted to work again.

After her morning meeting with Glitsky, Sarah’s turmoil increased by the hour. By sunset, when she parked down the street from Graham’s place, she was a wreck. Twice during the day Marcel had wanted to come up here to Edgewood, find Graham, push a few of his buttons, see what popped up. Sarah told him they ought to wait, get more on him, bide their time. In reality she wanted to keep Marcel out of it, to go see Graham again by herself. This was dangerous on many levels, she knew, and unprofessional on all of them, but she was going to do it anyway.

For the first time in her career she wasn’t sure she was after the right person. Suddenly, after last night’s really meaningless discussion at the ballpark, she’d lost her cop’s simple take on Graham Russo. He’d become mostly a human being, not mostly a suspect.

And worse, he was a human being she could be attracted to, was already attracted to. It was wise to acknowledge that, keep it in front of her.

She knew it was a bad situation, untenable really. She ought to take herself off the case. Her objectivity was shot.

But what if that apparent objectivity led her and Marcel to the wrong conclusion? They might, for the second time, arrest the wrong man – a black mark on each of their careers, a possible false-arrest lawsuit, to say nothing of the grief to Graham. This is what she wanted to avoid, why she wanted to see Graham without her partner hovering.

She’d talk to Graham and get it clear to her own satisfaction, lay this ambivalence to rest. He was either a murder suspect or not. She had to know for herself. Then she could do her job.

That was all it was. She was just making sure, taking that extra step, being a good cop. That’s what she told herself.

But there was one other problem: she found she couldn’t shake a kind of simmering anger at Graham for having put her in this position. Was he manipulating her, or trying to? Who was this guy? He shouldn’t have come up to her at the ballpark. They were enemies, on opposite sides. What was that all about? Arrogance, as Marcel contended? Or was Graham simply, as he’d appeared, a sweet guy who held nothing against the woman who’d arrested him, had wanted no more than to tell her that he knew she was only doing her job? No hard feelings.

She just didn’t know. It was personal somehow, and it shouldn’t have ever gotten to there. It made her mad.

She was going to find out who he was.

Graham and another man stood talking out in the street in front of his place. It was full dusk and the fog had thinned up here on the hill, though the wind still gusted fitfully, shaking fistfuls of blossoms, snowlike, from the trees around them.

Sarah walked up, dressed for business in a blue suit as she’d been all day. ‘Hello, Graham.’

He turned to look at her. She thought she saw something welcoming in his face, though it disappeared instantly.

She kept moving toward him. ‘Your father called you twice on Friday morning. What did you two talk about?’

It tore at her heart to see something go out of Graham’s shoulders, but he recovered quickly, bringing his companion into it. ‘This is my favorite cop, Sergeant Evans. Sarah, Mike Cerrone. He’s a reporter.’

The reporter put out his hand, and she took it. ‘You’re not with the Chronicle .’ Sarah knew the locals, and this guy wasn’t one of them.

‘ Time ,’ he answered.

‘My, how the word do get around.’

In truth, she’d been expecting something like this. The shop talk at the Hall was about how big this had gotten in a hurry. And now Time .

‘You boys been drinking?’ she asked. To Cerrone: ‘I could call you a cab. Here in the Wild West it’s considered bad form to drink and drive.’

Graham had his grin back. ‘What did I tell you? She is some pistol. Don’t let her sweet looks fool you.’