John Lescroart - The Mercy Rule

Hardy explained the admittedly tenuous connection. Out loud, it sounded lame.

‘You’re saying Sal had a great deal of cash…’

‘Fifty thousand dollars,’ Hardy said.

Giotti waved that off; the exact figure didn’t matter to him. ‘All of it bank-wrapped and dated, so you went through the Chronicle’s archives and ran across the Grotto fire five months before that date?’

‘Yes, Your Honor, that’s what I did.’

‘And you surmise that there’s a connection of some kind between these two elements?’

‘I don’t know,’ Hardy said. ‘This is the third time your name has appeared in this case.’

‘The third?’

A nod. ‘You found Sal, then the bomb scare earlier that same day, the day he was killed-’

‘How did my name appear there?’

‘Not your name precisely, Your Honor. Some connection to the courthouse here.’

‘But then back to my name, my father’s name in any event, with the Grotto fire?’

Hardy could understand it if Giotti grew impatient with this, although he didn’t show any sign of it. He sipped his coffee again, a benign expression on his face, waiting for Hardy to tie together at least some part of these strings.

Which he couldn’t do. Spreading his palms, he smiled sheepishly. ‘I don’t even know what I came to ask, specifically,’ he said. ‘There seemed to be some… some…’

‘Connection?’

‘Yes. I suppose so.’

‘To what?’

‘I don’t know.’ Hardy carefully placed his cup into his saucer, feeling very much a fool. ‘I’m sorry, Your Honor. I’m wasting your time. Quite often I actually think before I roll into gear. Evidently this wasn’t one of those times.’

Giotti didn’t seem to mind. He gestured expansively. ‘Don’t feel like you have to leave, Mr Hardy. This might not be a waste of anyone’s time. I’m curious as to how you plan to approach the overriding legal issue in the case.’

‘Assisted suicide?’

The judge nodded. ‘You know that here in the Ninth Circuit we expect to be in a bit of a war with the Supreme Court over this whole right-to-die question? It’s not unlike what seems to be going on between Sharron Pratt and Dean Powell.’ He leaned forward, placing bis cup and saucer on the coffee table. ‘We’ve already come down in Glucksberg on the side of the angels, but we’re going to be overturned. At least that’s my prediction. It’s my hope the Court doesn’t compel a blanket prohibition by the states, but they might.’

‘On assisted suicide, you mean?’

‘Yes.’

Hardy was extremely surprised – stunned even – that a federal judge would discuss such an issue with someone who might someday appear in his court as a litigant. He took his time framing an appropriate response. ‘Are you among the judges in favor of it?’

Giotti smiled in a weary way. ‘Let’s say I’m against prohibiting it for terminal patients. In legal terms, and Casey agrees with me, it’s a liberty interest issue, -not too dissimilar to abortion. Provided, of course, you’ve got cruise control.’

‘Cruise control?’ Suddenly they were talking about cars?

Giotti laughed. ‘Sorry. Jargon. Acronyms. CRUIS – competent, rational, uncoerced, informed, stable. You got a terminal patient on cruise control, he’s got the right to take his life.’

Hardy ran through the litany and a question rose. ‘Did Sal Russo fit your definition?’

‘I think so, when he formed the original intent. Recently, no, I’d say not.’

‘So you knew him pretty well?’

‘Both for a long time and pretty well, and those are not the same things at all.’ Giotti sat back and crossed his legs, comfortable. ‘I talked with him at least twice a month, sometimes more often’ – he pointed vaguely – ‘out there in the alley. Once in a while in his apartment.’

‘Selling fish?’

Giotti nodded. ‘That’s what he did. He was a great guy. Did you know him?’

‘I met him a few times.’

Hardy wasn’t sure where to take this. Giotti seemed to want to talk, perhaps reminisce, although it could be he was simply taking his lunch break and enjoyed talking to somebody. Hardy thought that his daily life here must be fairly isolated, proscribed. ‘I know Graham a lot better.’

This brought a frown, quickly suppressed. ‘Yes,’ the judge said, ‘I suppose you do. He’s not the most popular man in this building.’

Hardy smiled. ‘I’d heard some rumor like that.’

‘You don’t walk away from a clerkship. I don’t think it’s ever been done. It raised some hackles.’

‘Yours?’

Giotti considered this. ‘To be honest with you, yes. I had a lot of hopes for him. Through Sal. You know what I’m saying? Your friend’s kids? You hate to see a terrible cycle repeating itself. I didn’t want to see Graham turn out the way Sal had.’

‘Although he was your friend – Sal, I mean?’

‘Well, not like when we were younger.’ Giotti let out a deep sigh. ‘Sal failed. In life. I’d hate to see that happen with Graham, though that’s the way it looks like it’s going.’

‘So what happened with Sal? He wasn’t always a failure, was he?’

‘No. When he married Helen… have you met Helen?’

Hardy nodded.

‘Gorgeous woman, wouldn’t you agree? Well, that needs no discussion. When Sal married her, the whole town envied him. He was a gifted athlete, had this wonderful personality, ran his own business, had three beautiful kids…’

‘So what happened?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe he was living a lie, doing some high-wire act and pretending he could keep his balance until something gave him a good knock and he went over. On the other hand, Helen married Leland pretty quick – she might have cut his heart out. He disappeared for a few years. After he came back, he wasn’t ever the same. He was beaten.’

With no idea what possessed him, Hardy played a hunch. ‘And you helped set him up as Salmon Sal?’

Giotti shifted in his chair. His eyes sharpened. Then he broke a grin. ‘Say what you will about lawyers, I love how their minds work. Yes, well, Sal was my friend. I felt sorry for what had happened to him. Although set up is perhaps a little too strong. Perhaps people were more willing to know Sal because I did.’

‘And he never talked to you about the money?’

A cock of the head. ‘What money?’

‘Remember? He had fifty thousand dollars, so he didn’t have to work. He had all this cash.’

‘How do you know he had it back then? I know it’s dated back then, but that doesn’t mean it was in his possession.’

‘You know, that’s a good point.’ Suddenly.

The bills had been wrapped and dated, but that said nothing about their history over the past seventeen years. In fact, maybe this was the money that Sarah Evans had suspected Sal had been delivering for one of her gamblers. Would Graham know anything about that? Did he suspect as much himself? Hardy would have to ask him.

And then, the horrible thought: Graham’s retainer money. Where had that come from?

Meanwhile, he felt the judge’s eyes on him, was pulled back by a comment. ‘He was very sick by the end, you know. In a lot of pain.’

‘But no longer, as you say, on cruise control?’

‘That’s true. The Alzheimer’s was getting pretty severe. You couldn’t miss it. He couldn’t make his own decisions.’

‘But you say that sometime earlier he might have told Graham he wanted to die, to take his own life when it got bad enough?’

The judge ventured another smile. ‘Did I say that?’

‘I’m his attorney. It might help to know if he did.’

‘So you are going with assisted suicide.’