John Lescroart - The Mercy Rule

The Hardy family was having a renaissance. They’d all eaten dinner together – an unusual occurrence over the past few months. Supposedly, that had been due to their father’s work schedule, but today he’d put in nearly as many productive hours as he usually did. This time, though, he’d made it a point to come home when he finished. After they ate, they had sprawled with popcorn on the living-room floor, playing a marathon tournament of Chinese checkers.

When he’d gone to tuck them in for the last time, both kids put their arms around him, not wanting to let go. As he came out to the kitchen, his wife did the same thing. ‘They miss you all the time. This is what they need. Once in a while I do too.’

He held her. ‘I know. I’m going to try and keep doing this. Being around.’

‘It’s a concept,’ she said. She moved closer against him. ‘Were they asleep?’

‘Asleep enough. We close the door and they won’t hear a thing.’

Snuggled together, they were dozing to the news. At first Hardy didn’t know if he’d dreamed or heard the name Graham Russo, but Frannie nudged him. ‘Did you know about this?’

‘What?’

But it had only been the teaser. They had to endure four commercials before the news came back on. ‘While local police still won’t comment on the apparent assisted suicide of Sal Russo ten days ago, saying only that the investigation is continuing, in Sacramento today, the chairperson of the Hemlock Society – a right-to-die group – came forward and said that Sal Russo’s son, Graham, had spoken to her just minutes before he went to his father’s apartment. For more on that story, live in Sacramento, here’s…’

Hardy was sitting all the way forward. ‘Oh, Lord, give me a break.’

Barbara Brandt, looking every inch the lobbyist, confidently met the eye of the camera. ‘He was very emotional and upset, as anyone would be when it comes to the moment. I think he just wanted some assurance. It was natural.’

Off camera the reporter asked why Graham hadn’t admitted this himself.

Brandt, understanding yet slightly disappointed in the nature of people, shook her head. ‘We argued about it last weekend on the phone. This was heroic. The public has a right to know the truth. Sal and Graham Russo together had the courage to act, but Graham doesn’t want to embody the issue. Well, it’s too late for that now. I’m going public to let Graham know that he’s not alone. The laws against assisted suicide and euthanasia must be changed.’ She stared at the camera. ‘Whatever the consequences, Graham, you did the right thing.’

Hardy hit the mute button. ‘I don’t believe this.’

Frannie, too, had come awake. ‘What don’t you believe?’ she asked. ‘That she came forward with this or what she’s saying?’

‘I don’t know. Who is she? I never heard of her. Graham never mentioned her.’ Hardy was shaking his head. ‘But I’ll tell you one thing for sure. Whoever she is, she just screwed him.’

At eight forty-five, Sarah opened the door to her apartment, thinking she should get herself a cat or a hamster or a goldfish – something alive to greet her when she came home.

She had stopped in at the corner grocery downstairs and bought an apple and a TV dinner that she called ‘mean cuisine,’ and now she took off her jacket, unstrapped her holster and hung it on a kitchen chair, unwrapped the food and put it in the microwave, went into the bathroom to take a quick shower.

Fifteen minutes later she had eaten and gotten dressed again in civilian clothes – blue jeans, tennis shoes, a white fisherman’s sweater. She wasn’t planning to go out, but it was too early for pajamas and her robe.

She made the conscious decision not to pursue any thoughts on the Russo case tonight. Her workday was done. Dr Finer had been the end of it. Well, almost. After that discussion she’d sat at her desk, fingering her paper scraps, conjuring her own image of who Sal had been.

Carrying her afghan in from the bedroom, she got herself settled in her chair and spent most of another hour finishing a paperback about Kat Colorado going on tour with a country singer in Nashville, saving the woman’s life, of course, winning another one for the good guys.

Sarah liked these books about women private eyes, especially the quick-witted, smart-mouthed ones. She didn’t fancy herself like them, but it was fun to live in their shoes for the space of a book, although they always got so personally involved. That wasn’t like real police work.

She wasn’t going to think about it.

She turned the television on to pick up the end of the Giants game. They had just come back in the bottom of the ninth and beaten the Dodgers. She thought she’d call her parents and rub it in a little. But they weren’t home. She left a message, came back to her chair in front of the TV, sat down heavily. Her parents were always going out nowadays, having fun.

Three of her girlfriends and her little brother, Jerry, in Concord – three answering machines and one she woke up.

Okay, she told herself, it was just one of those nights.

But – the walls closing in, the droning television her only companion, she decided she’d go out for a walk, grab a cup of decaf at one of the places over on Clement, that’s what she’d do. By then her mom and dad might be home and she could talk to them for a few minutes and then turn in.

She considered calling her partner; but no, she saw enough of Lanier, and socially he was not her idea of company. Besides, they would wind up talking about the case.

It was eating her up.

She felt an unseen pair of hands pushing down on her, holding her in the chair. She was not going to turn out like Sal Russo, she told herself. So what if she lived alone in an apartment not too dissimilar from his? What did that mean? Half the city – hell, half the people her age in cities all over the world – lived like this. Or worse, sometimes much worse. It didn’t necessarily lead anywhere.

She wasn’t anything like Sal. She wasn’t going to wind up where he had. She was a success. By thirty-two she’d reached the peak of her profession.

The walls again. She hadn’t gotten around to hanging any art. With her work she hadn’t had time. And look, there were a couple of posters after all – the Monterey Aquarium, a saguaro cactus in a desert somewhere that reminded her of her parents – but they were both unframed, sagging from their tacks in the faded drywall.

She got up and took the five-step walk into the kitchen. It was neat enough, unlike Sal’s. (‘See?’ she said to herself.) There were no dirty dishes piled anywhere. But the linoleum was peeling up in the corners. The table and chairs were thrift store, secondhand. Nice enough, but after thirty more years, she wondered what they’d look like, what they’d feel like, at that time to someone who was her age now.

But that was silly. Of course she’d move up, into something better. Now she was young and unattached. She didn’t need any more. But Graham – damn him, coming back into her consciousness like this! – Graham’s place wasn’t at all like this, was it? It was elegant and fine. And he, too, was young and unattached.

In the door between kitchen and living room she surveyed her own place objectively, as if it were a crime scene, as if something had happened to her here, tonight, now.

The afghan had been tossed off, and lay half on the ancient wing chair, half on the woven throw rug. Everything in sight was well used: the homemade brick-and-board bookshelves with their dog-eared paperbacks and law-enforcement journals, the cassette player, the lion’s-claw coffee table, pocked with rings from hot, cold, wet glasses placed directly on the wood.