John Lescroart - The Mercy Rule

As Hardy had discovered when he’d talked to Blue, preparing for his cross.

But Soma couldn’t leave it. It struck him as unfair. He had the right meaning and he was, somehow, wrong. He turned to the jury, including them, his voice getting that familiar stridency. ‘But then means after, Blue. Isn’t that the meaning of the word?’

Hardy could have objected that he was badgering the witness, but Soma was shooting himself in the foot anyway and Hardy thought he’d let him do it. Blue pulled herself up. ‘Sometime it might. But that’s just not what I meant.’

During one of the afternoon recesses a uniformed police officer stuck a note in front of Hardy. Glitsky wanted to know where he could meet Hardy in moderate privacy after he got off today. Hardy thought a moment, then scribbled his reply and sent the officer on his way.

Glitsky had saved Hardy’s bacon.

By authorizing Sarah to look into George and Debra’s possible connection to Sal’s murder, he’d relieved Hardy of any obligation to tell Leland that his money was being used to investigate his own family. It was a police matter now.

Hardy and Glitsky hadn’t said a lot of words the previous night about their ongoing feud. It was behind them, leaving its slightly bitter residue. Instead, they mostly talked about the lieutenant’s long interview with Sarah Evans, which had led him to reconsider his earlier decision to drop the investigation.

The rest of Hardy’s afternoon was taken up by four witnesses, various other residents of Sal’s building, people who’d seen Graham in the vicinity. Hardy asked each of them the same questions: had they ever witnessed anything like a fight between Sal and Graham? Did they see or hear a struggle of any kind in or around Sal’s apartment on May 9?

They all said no to everything.

The breeze was stiff out of the west, bending the cypresses in the Park as the lieutenant headed west along Lincoln. A fitful sunlight struggled through the intermittent cloud cover and, when it could, cast long shadows. Traffic was heavy until he turned on Masonic, winding his way back up to Edgewood.

He parked and got out of his car. There was no sign of any wind up here, though in the sky some angels had raked the cirrus into neat rows. He crossed the street and walked up to the address Hardy had given him.

Hardy was leaning against his car, his arms crossed over his chest. ‘You said private. I thought you’d like it here.’

The lieutenant threw another look all around. ‘What is this place?’

‘Graham Russo lives here.’

Glitsky nodded. ‘I wish I did.’ Then, ‘Evans and I had another talk today. We didn’t do this right.’

‘I know that.’

‘You know about Tosca and this guy Ising?’

‘Graham’s mentioned them both.’

‘You didn’t hire an investigator? Find out what they’ve been up to?’

Hardy told a fib of omission. ‘Money’s tight, Abe. I’m barely breaking even.’ He shrugged. ‘I can’t worry about who did it. It’s my job to get my client off.’

‘What I hear, you might be doing that.’

Again, a shrug. ‘It could happen, though we got a bad jury for it. So what are we doing up here, me and you?’

‘This time of day there’s lots of eyes at the Hall.’ Glitsky looked around the quiet street as though checking for spies. He took his time answering. ‘I wanted to let you know we’re going to keep looking. Evans wants to go and question the brother and sister directly, but that gets squirrely. We’d have to give them a reason, and then what?’

‘I’ve had the same problem.’

‘And these possible money angles.’ Glitsky shook his head. ‘Contrary to popular belief I don’t want to ace the wrong guy.’

‘Time’s running out, Abe. It might be too late already.’

‘I know,’ Glitsky said. ‘But for the record.’

There was only a slim chance it would do much good in the time he had left. Still, it was a grand gesture for a professional cop and administrator. ‘For the record,’ Hardy said, ‘I appreciate it.’

Frannie was asleep by nine.

Hardy tossed until eleven, then got up and turned on the news. After yesterday’s human-interest bombshell with Sarah and the fallout from her testimony, the trial was back to hot copy. Hardy learned that evidently he’d done well with Blue today; the newscaster reported that one of the prosecution’s major witnesses had failed to establish that any struggle had taken place in the apartment between Sal Russo and his son.

‘But tomorrow is Alison Li, the bank teller who-’ Hardy hit the remote and decided to give sleep another try.

This wasn’t possible, Hardy was telling himself. Could it be that his own stupidity was going to cost him the case? It looked that way right now. The four attorneys were in Salter’s chambers talking about the admissibility of the videotapes. Freeman might believe that the defense didn’t need them, that the entire money/bank issue was beside the point, but to Hardy they were the equivalent of a smoking gun for the defense. If the videotapes were admitted after Soma had gone to great lengths to prove that Graham had, for whatever reason, come to the bank on Friday, Hardy had proof that he hadn’t. It would devastate the prosecution’s argument.

But now it was looking as though it wasn’t going to happen. Drysdale and Soma hadn’t questioned the tape’s admissibility in any of the pretrial hearings, but now, with Alison Li coming up next, they’d requested this hearing in chambers, charging that Hardy couldn’t lay any foundation for the tape – what it was, where it came from, how it was relevant. It should be ruled inadmissible.

‘Judge’ – Hardy was on his feet in front of Salter’s desk – ‘I got this tape months ago. It was in my discovery that I shared with the prosecution. Mr Soma and Mr Drysdale have had every opportunity to review it. It clearly shows that my client didn’t go into the bank on Friday, which is one of the cornerstones of their case.’

If Hardy wasn’t so hot himself, he might have been concerned by his partner, David Freeman’s, posture. The old man was in a corner of the room, seated, arms crossed, keeping out of it. A bad sign in itself.

Drysdale, too, had recovered from his explosion of the other afternoon. He was low-affect here, and he did most of the talking.

Soma stood next to him, barely concealing his smugness. Drysale was talking: ‘We have no problem with the original tape, Judge. Our problem is with Mr Hardy’s copy.’

‘All right, so let’s use the original,’ Hardy said, giving up a point far too quickly. The greatest enemy in any trial was surprise, and Hardy had just opened himself up for another one.

‘We were told the original’s been erased.’ Soma couldn’t keep the note of triumph out of his voice.

Hardy had no idea how long Soma had known this, or for how long he’d been planning his ambush, but he was obviously enjoying the hell out of it now.

Hardy turned to him. ‘It has not been erased.’ But even as he said it, he knew it had to be true. Soma wouldn’t have any reason to bluff. ‘I asked the bank to save it.’

He had figured he had the copy. He’d even copied the copy to give to Soma and Drysdale. The efficient and personable Ms Reygosa, the manager, had assured Hardy that the bank would keep the original as backup.

With his infuriating calm, Drysdale was back at Salter. ‘Naturally, we wanted to review the original for accuracy after we’d seen Mr Hardy’s copy, Your Honor. Evidently the bank misinterpreted Mr Hardy’s request and thought that once the tape had been copied, they would be free to reuse it.’

Hardy pressed his fingers against his temples. This could not be happening. It was completely his incompetence. He couldn’t believe it, and there was no one to blame but himself. ‘Your Honor, I have the copy and it has remained unedited and in my possession-’