John Lescroart - The Oath

"I was planning to call him later, so he probably doesn't." He shot a look at Bracco. "What time did you leave there?"

Bracco answered without inflection. "A few minutes after your client, say ten straight up."

"And he was the last visitor?"

"The last car in the street out front, yeah. Plus he told me he was the last one there except the family, and they were turning in."

"After he left"-Hardy threw a dart-"did you go up to the house?"

Fisk, idly turning the pages of one of Hardy's magazines, suddenly stopped and looked up at the question.

"No," Bracco replied. "Your guy kind of convinced me that they'd had enough for the day. What did he do after he left?"

"He drove home and went to bed. And, Inspector"-Hardy threw again-"he didn't come back."

"Can he prove that?"

"Can you prove he did?"

Fisk cleared his throat, closed his magazine, and dropped it onto the end table. "Mr. Hardy. Darrel. What do you say we keep Kensing out of the mix until he puts himself back in. How's that sound?"

Hardy had gone back to his board and was pulling darts. Now he walked back to his desk, put them down on it, and pulled a chair around. "That's a good idea, Inspector. Dr. Kensing's not going to put himself back in." He met both of their eyes. "I apologize if I'm touchy about my client."

Bracco hadn't moved an inch, but his shoulders settled almost imperceptibly. When he spoke, the tone was conciliatory, too. "We've narrowed it down to the five people who'd been around the ICU that morning, excluding the two nurses. Does that fly with you?"

Hardy was somewhat disturbed but not surprised to see Freeman's predictions of the morning come true so quickly. If the nurses were out of consideration for Markham, then Marjorie Loring's death wasn't any part of Kensing anymore, if indeed it ever had been. But, betraying little, he only nodded. "If the nurses have alibis for Tuesday night."

"Both of them do," Bracco said. "Rajan Bhutan was playing bridge in San Jose, although Lieutenant Glitsky says some of the staff think he looks good for Loring. For what it's worth, Harlen and I don't think he looks too bad, either-"

Hardy interrupted. "And he was one of Markham's nurses?"

"Yeah. But with this alibi for Carla. And the other one, Connie Rowe, was home with her family-husband, two kids. She didn't go out."

"Okay."

"So the scenario at Markham's house is that someone came between ten and ten forty-five, and Carla opened the door to whoever it was. Then the kids start going to bed while Carla and X talk a while. At some point, X excuses himself and goes into Markham's office where he keeps his gun."

"Who'd know that?" Hardy asked abruptly. "Not just that he had one but where he kept it?"

"That's a point," Fisk said, "but if X was an acquaintance of Carla's, which it looks like he was, he might have known."

Hardy thought that this was reasonable enough. "Okay. Let's go back to who's left," he said, "besides my client, of course."

Bracco had them on the tip of his tongue. "Driscoll, Ross, Waltrip, Cohn."

Hardy had come across the name Cohn only about an hour before in his reading-the report Bracco and Fisk had written up on what they'd discovered last Friday night but had forgotten to tape. At that time it had leapt off the page at him and brought his heart to his throat. Hearing the name again now, he showed nothing, even let himself chuckle. "You realize I haven't talked to even one of those people. Who are Waltrip and Cohn?"

As far as Hardy knew from the transcripts and reports he'd read, the inspectors hadn't spoken to any of these people, either, although they didn't volunteer that. Instead, Bracco was low-key. "Just some doctors who'd also been in the ICU that day-Kent Waltrip and Judith Cohn."

"But no sign they'd been to Carla's?"

"No," Fisk replied. "We assume they both knew Markham, but other than that, we don't have much on them."

"Their names, is all," Bracco added. "I don't think either of them played any role here, but we kept them in just to be thorough."

Hardy nodded. "So it's Driscoll or Ross?"

It was Bracco's turn to break a small smile. "Under the local rules." Meaning, not including Kensing.

Hardy allowed a friendly nod. "So how are their alibis? Driscoll and Ross?"

Obviously embarrassed, the inspectors exchanged a glance. "We haven't had a chance to talk to them, either."

"Maybe you want to do that," he said gently. "Meanwhile, just to be thorough, I'll try to get in touch with Waltrip and Cohn."

The second and third names on Kensing's list had been cremated, rather severely limiting the options for further forensic analysis. The fourth name was Shirley Watrous.

She had died on the day after last Christmas. She'd been admitted to the hospital a week before that for acute phlebitis, then suffered a stroke in her bed that left her paralyzed and unable to communicate. Moved to the ICU for observation and further testing, on the fifth day she passed away without ever regaining consciousness. The hospital PM listed the cause of death as cerebral hemorrhage.

This time around, Strout knew exactly what he was looking for-the Pavulon cocktail-and he found it. Mrs. Watrous, too, had been murdered.

Glitsky, Ash, and Jackman were crammed into Marlene's office, having a powwow. Her office mate had checked out at close of business, and Jackman sat at his desk. Glitsky had pulled a chair around and was facing them, straddling it backward.

"Of course," Glitsky was saying, "he's got no idea what he was doing on November twelfth"-he was talking about Rajan Bhutan-"but the day after Christmas, he might remember."

"Is he a Christian?" Marlene asked. "Maybe he doesn't celebrate Christmas."

"Either way, it's a holiday." Jackman turned to Glitsky. "Abe, he's clean on Carla Markham?"

"He's got maybe twenty people who'll swear where he was when Carla got shot. For me, that clears him on both her and Markham."

Jackman pushed some paper clips around the blotter in front of him. When he spoke, it might have been to himself. "It beggars belief that Kensing could be the source of this problem at Portola when there's no relation to Markham."

Marlene added her own thoughts. "I think it's high time we get him in front of the grand jury, find out what he knows once and for all. Have you ruled him out on Carla, Abe?"

Glitsky almost laughed. "Not close. Far as I'm concerned, he's still the inside track. Matter of fact, I'm dropping by his place on my way home." Glitsky produced a terrifying smile and then a piece of paper from his jacket pocket. "With a search warrant this time."

Marlene got out of her chair. "If you can give me five minutes, I can have a subpoena for you to deliver, too. You mind?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Jackman interjected. "You're both forgetting something. I promised Hardy we'd give Kensing thirty days' grace."

This dampened the room's enthusiasm level for a nanosecond, but only that. Marlene had the answer almost before the objection was out. "That was on Markham's murder, Clarence, when Kensing was our suspect. Rather specifically. There's no way Hardy could object to the grand jury needing to hear about the list Kensing himself provided."

"And as soon as possible." Glitsky turned to the DA and added formally, "To keep our mutual and cooperative investigations on track."

Jackman considered for a long beat, then finally nodded. "Okay, do it."

Dr. Kent Waltrip told Hardy he'd made his morning rounds at the ICU-he had a patient coming out of a bout with spinal meningitis-and he'd finished up at about 10:15, after which he'd gone to the clinic to see his regular patients. He'd worked there all day.