John Lescroart - The Mercy Rule

Freeman was savoring his wine, enjoying that and his little puzzle. ‘Front page.’

Another minute. A shake of the head. ‘Nothing. I don’t see it.’

‘How about the bomb threat?’

Hardy reread the article. The new federal courthouse had been evacuated a little before noon after someone had called in a threat. ‘I don’t know, David. I don’t think Sal had anything to do with that.’

‘I don’t either. But where is the courthouse?’

Freeman didn’t need to explain any further. ‘That’s what I mean by context, son,’ he said. ‘You got a hundred or so people, maybe more, milling outside in the alley under your victim’s window couple of hours before he’s killed.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know what it means, if anything. Maybe not, probably not. It just catches my interest, that’s all.’

On its best day the third floor of the Hall of Justice was a study in controlled mayhem. Lawyers, cops, bailiffs, clerks, prospective jurors, relatives and friends of defendants or victims, the curious, law students, retirees, reporters, anyone with a legal or political ax to grind – these folks would congregate in the wide-open hallways.

Sometimes they didn’t all get along.

Unlike the federal courthouse, with its renovated marble-arched interiors inspiring confidence and even awe in the majesty of the law, the Hall of Justice, with its green paint and linoleum floors, inspired nothing. It was a big, loud place where bureaucrats worked and deals got cut.

The minute Hardy arrived for Graham’s arraignment, he was noticed. ‘That’s him!’ he heard. ‘There he is!’

The reporters were flies to his honey, shoving microphones into his face, shooting questions in their low-key and dignified manner, impeding his progress down the hall. A couple of minicams were rolling and the bright lights nearly blinded him.

His peripheral vision had picked up some placards behind the knot of reporters. There were a lot of bystanders today, even for the Hall. The show, after all, was about to start.

‘No comment. Sorry. I really can’t say anything yet. Please, I’ve got to get through here.’

He went through the special extra metal detector set up outside Department 22. He knew it was for his case, placed there to guard against the possibility that someone would try to kill his client to show the world that assisted suicide was wrong.

In the courtroom it was less frenetic, although every seat in the gallery was taken. The presiding Calendar judge, Timothy Manion, a youthful, dark-haired leprechaun with whom Hardy had tipped several glasses back when they’d both been assistant DAs, had ascended to the bench but appeared not to have called the first ‘line’ – a reference to the computer printout listing defendants and charges.

Walking up the center aisle and through the rail, Hardy breathed a sigh of relief. Graham hadn’t even been led out into the courtroom yet. At the jury box attorneys waiting for their lines to be called could sit when there was an overflow gallery, and Hardy took one of the chairs, next to an older courtroom regular. ‘This crowd here for you?’ the man asked.

Hardy said he thought so and the guy passed a business card over to him. ‘You need some motion work, background checks, anything, I’m available.’

Hardy nodded, friendly, but it bothered him. The hustling for clients, for work, it just never let up. He glanced at the card, then put it in his pocket. ‘I’ll keep it in mind, thanks.’

Finally, he got a chance to take in the surroundings. He hadn’t been in Superior Court for four years and it hadn’t changed in any way. High ceilings, no windows; the room was large and utterly bland. In front of the bar rail the gallery held about a hundred and twenty people on uncomfortable, theater-style seats of hard blond wood. There was also standing room for another forty or so.

Recognition was kicking in. Sharron Pratt herself was here, in the second row. At the end of the jury box Gil Soma conferred with Art Drysdale. Hardy checked for Dean Powell, but the attorney general was leaving it to his deputies.

Then the gavel came down and all eyes went to the bench.

To the judge’s left a door at the back of the courtroom led to the defendant’s holding tank, and as the fourth line was called this morning, that door opened and Graham Russo was brought in.

There was an audible hum in the gallery that Manion stilled with a warning glare. Hardy got up from his seat and went to meet his client at the podium in the center of the bullpen.

After his night in jail Graham looked wan and tired, and the orange jumpsuit reinforced that impression, but when Hardy asked him how he was doing, he said okay. Then, leaning across his attorney, he whispered at the prosecution table, ‘Hey, Gil.’

When Soma looked over, Graham smiled at him. Keeping his hand behind the podium so the judge couldn’t see, his body blocking it from the gallery’s view, he flipped him off. Hardy, of course, saw it. He immediately covered Graham’s hand with his own. But not in time.

‘Your Honor.’ Soma was up out of his chair. ‘The defendant just made an obscene gesture to me.’

‘Not obscene enough,’ Graham whispered.

‘Shut up,’ Hardy ordered him. He didn’t know what Soma hoped to achieve by bringing this little contretemps to the judge’s attention, but Hardy knew Manion, and he wasn’t going to react well to any grandstanding, particularly if it involved whining.

He’d been rearranging his papers, and now he raised his eyes. ‘Mr Hardy,’ he said simply, ‘control your client. I don’t want any shenanigans in here, is that understood? This is a court of law.’

‘Yes, Your Honor,’ Hardy said, and decided then and there to take a gamble, ‘but for the record, Mr Soma may be mistaken.’

The judge, sensing a pissing contest, wanted to keep his busy day moving. He bobbed his head and said, ‘Noted.’

Keeping his own expression under tight control, Hardy threw a look at Soma. The message, he was sure, got delivered. From now on every word counted. To every play Soma made, no matter how small, Hardy would fashion a defense. Best let Soma know he had a fight on his hands. Hardy would kick his ass in this courtroom if he could, every time he could. That knowledge might make the boy reckless. It might make him scared. If nothing else, Hardy had rattled his cage.

But the moment was just that, a moment. Hardy knew – indeed, most of the courtroom knew – what was coming next, and a stillness settled as the judge looked straight at Graham and intoned his name. ‘Graham Russo,’ he began, ‘you are charged by indictment with a felony filed herein.’

The words were pro forma but they always had an effect on the gallery. There was a stir behind Hardy. Manion glared for quiet, but it didn’t work this time. Some members of the gallery had come to make a stand.

‘This wasn’t any felony!’

‘It wasn’t even wrong!’

‘Sal Russo had a right to die!’

The gavel. When relative quiet had resumed, the judge raised his voice so he could be heard all the way to the back of the room, but his tone was mild. ‘I know a lot of you people have gone to some trouble to get down to this courtroom today, but I’m not going to tolerate this kind of disturbance. So all of you do yourselves a favor and do not interrupt these proceedings again. I will remove every one of you all the hell out of here. Is that clear?’

Apparently it was.

‘Mr Russo.’ Manion repeated the formula, continuing, ‘… to wit, a violation of section 187 of the Penal Code in that you did, in the City and County of San Francisco, State of California, on or about the ninth of May, 1997, willfully, unlawfully, and with malice aforethought’ – and here the judge paused again, as if he himself were questioning the language. But he took a heavy breath and went ahead with it – ‘ murder Salvatore Russo, a human being.’