John Lescroart - The Mercy Rule

‘Great,’ she said dryly. ‘That’s fascinating. Really.’

The judge in the Tryptech case had just taken on the modern role of the monk who’d counted all those teeth. First thing this morning, Michelle had called Hardy at home with the news that they had been served with a cross-complaint. The Port of Oakland had evidently decided to press the charge that Tryptech had overloaded their container. Further, a judge had decided that Tryptech had the burden of proof as to how many computers were actally in the container. An affidavit from some shipping guy wasn’t going to do it.

Tryptech – through Hardy – had been making the argument that the container hadn’t been overloaded. He had presented the bill of lading, which, in theory, ‘proved’ the actual number of computers inside the container. Additionally, the computers were insured and therefore it would obviously be counterproductive for the company to claim fewer than had actually been there, since they were being paid for every one that had been lost.

Of course, Hardy knew it wouldn’t take a genius to realize that the monetary difference between say, two hundred extra computers at a thousand dollars each, and the millions the company stood to lose if the Port of Oakland won the lawsuit, was fabulously insignificant. Now the thing would have to be lifted from the bottom of the Bay, so that the computers within could be counted.

But pulling up the container would cost a bundle, and their client had told them he didn’t have a bundle on hand in cash just now.

The name of the game was delay, and Hardy had been successful in putting off this problem for nearly five months.

However, now that the judge had decided, it was going to happen.

The dredging fee of one hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars might not be unreasonable in light of the potential size of the damage award, but Brunei was saying it was blood from a turnip.

Hardy didn’t know how he could delay any longer. Tryptech would have to figure out some way to come up with the money.

‘Actually’ – Michelle was more comfortable now that they were back to business – ‘I see a way that we can use this to our advantage. We should be able to string this along for a while.’

‘Okay, hit me,’ Hardy said.

‘Take it out to bid. We’ll of course comply with the ruling, but unless the Port wants to take on some – no, all - of the expense, I think we can argue that it’s only fair that we solicit bids from competing dredging firms, get the best possible price. Who could argue with that?’

Hardy had to admire her. Say what he would about the values of his own classical training, he had to admit that in the here and now Michelle was a godsend. Competing bids would buy them another few months at least, and anything could happen in a couple of months.

Maybe, Hardy fantasized, he could convince Brunei to hire a team of scuba divers to locate the container in deep secrecy by night and put in some extra units, the presence of which Brunei continued to assert.

‘How would you like to handle the details?’ he asked her. She had already gathered the paperwork and put it atop the stack of briefs they still had to discuss.

‘That’s what I’m here for.’

Before the ‘horse’s mouth’ issue had intervened, the morning routine at home had been anything but. Today’s drama was the mystery of how every toothbrush in the house had disappeared.

Upon some pretty hefty cross-examination, Rebecca and Vincent had confessed that maybe they remembered that yesterday Orel Glitsky might have thought of another use for them and they’d played some game in the backyard, or mostly in the backyard, they thought. There were fences and forts involved.

And Jason, their little nephew – ‘and he’s still a baby, Dad,’ Rebecca reminded him – had played with the toothbrushes too. But both of his kids were sure , they were positive , that if somehow they had taken all the toothbrushes, which wasn’t very likely, but if they had, then they had put them back right afterward.

After finishing up the morning’s strategy-and-review session with Michelle, he’d walked three blocks in the breezy forenoon and picked up half a dozen fresh bao - sticky buns filled with hoisin and plum and barbecued sauces and stuffed with various roasted meats – pork, chicken, duck. All by itself, he thought, the ready availability of hot-out-of-the-oven bao was reason enough to live in San Francisco.

He was in the greenhouse Solarium, alone, the bao a still-fragrant and comforting memory, the morning Chronicle open on the table in front of him. He hadn’t forgotten anything about his talk last night with Abe Glitsky. (Maybe Glitsky had stolen the toothbrushes! Aha! That was it. Even if it wasn’t, he could accuse him of it and have some fun.)

It had become pretty clear in the talk at the table that Glitsky thought Sal had been killed and, more, that Graham had murdered him. And if that was the case, then Glitsky knew more than Hardy did.

He scanned the paper, but there was nothing particularly new and exciting there. The weekend hadn’t provided any startling revelations. Even DA Pratt and AG Powell had maintained what one article called a ‘wary silence.’ Thirty-one doctors took out a full-page advertisement announcing that they had helped patients kill themselves, but this, Hardy knew, wasn’t going to have any direct impact on the Graham Russo case.

So what did Glitsky know?

Pulling the ten-button conference-room phone over to him, he started to call the homicide detail, but hung up. If the lieutenant hadn’t talked to him sixteen hours ago, he wasn’t going to start now. Nothing had changed on that front.

Suddenly, that old horse’s mouth yawed open before him again. ‘Idiot,’ he said to himself, shaking his head.

A miracle, Graham was home and picked up his telephone. But the first words out of his mouth – that he’d spent more time chatting with Sarah Evans – cut short Hardy’s happiness that he’d reached his client. ‘You’re making this up, aren’t you, Graham?’ he said. ‘Please tell me you’re making this up.’

‘No. I’m not. It was really good.’

‘It was really good,’ Hardy repeated. ‘That’s nice. I’m happy for you.’

‘It wasn’t like what you’re thinking,’ Graham protested.

Hardy could picture him, sitting framed in his splendid back window, looking out over the city, having a cup of his terrific Kona coffee, perhaps savoring a fresh croissant, bought with who knows what money. Maybe, Hardy thought, living up there in fairy-tale land colored one’s view of the rest of the world.

In any case, Graham was in serious need of a reality check. ‘What wasn’t it like? You tell me. How it could be different from what I’m thinking? Even in the best of all worlds, what other interpretation could there possibly be?’

‘If Sarah was going to arrest me, Diz, she would have done it already. She just wanted to know.’

‘We’re talking Sergeant Evans of the homicide detail, is that right? Suddenly, she’s Sarah now? Are you guys going out together, staying in, what? It would help if I knew.’

‘Nothing, Diz. Nothing like that.’

‘She just wanted to know the truth?’

‘Right.’

‘And the Time guy, what about him?’

‘He was a good guy.’

Hardy could envision the shrug, the nonchalance. He knew he was getting geared up here, and he didn’t think it would hurt his client any to realize it. ‘Graham, it’s this reporter’s job to be a good guy and get you to like him so you’ll open up and tell him the story he needs to write. It’s not personal.’