Hardy 05 - Mercy Rule, The (62 page)

‘No, I didn’t do that.’

‘Because he’d started talking about it, didn’t he? He was back in the past, telling people about the fire, wasn’t he?’

‘I didn’t kill him,’ Giotti repeated.

‘I don’t believe you.’

The judge pulled the bill back toward him, centered it in front of him. ‘I don’t care what you believe, Mr Hardy. Sal was my best friend. He saved my whole life, my career, everything, and he suffered terribly for it — really lost everything. You think after that, after all he went through for me, I’m going to reward him by killing him?’

‘I don’t think you had any choice.’

‘Well, you’re wrong. The fire was a tragedy, an accident, a mistake. I’ve tried to make it up to that poor family as well as anybody could. To Sal too. We stuck together, even if he sometimes made it a little hard on me. I
never
would have killed him. Don’t you understand that? Never, under any conditions. I’d have gone down myself first.’

38

He didn’t get out of Giotti’s until after three and then, unable to refocus, he’d walked to the
Chronicle
building, gone to the archives, and read every story he could find on the fire, on Palmieri, on Giotti.

By now the rain was falling steadily, and he had walked back uptown to his office in the thick of it. There he discovered that in the past two days he’d collected twenty-one call slips and his voice mail ran to over ten minutes. There was no question, Graham Russo’s trial had given his career a shot in the arm, even if at the moment he couldn’t imagine that anyone would want to pay for the services of a bumbling moron such as himself.

Where had he gotten everything wrong? What had he missed?

He had to put that — all of it — out of his mind. The day hadn’t been a total failure. He had found Joan Singleterry and her connection to Sal Russo. Her kids were going to get the money. Whoopee.

His biggest problem — he had trouble even phrasing it to himself — he didn’t quite disbelieve Mario Giotti. The judge’s vehemence and passion at the end of their discussion about Sal’s role in his life had struck a resonant chord, and suddenly Hardy had lost the conviction that Giotti was lying.

Killing Sal was beyond Giotti’s pale. He had never intentionally killed anyone. He had been trying to make moral restitution to the victims of the one accidental death — technically a murder, but certainly unintentional — he’d been involved with. He was not a cold-blooded man, a man who would kill with premeditation, even if his victim was already on the verge of death. That distinction would be critical to him. His life’s work in the law could never let him forget it.

So who had killed Sal?

His office had grown dark and he flicked on his green-shaded banker’s lamp. Guilt over his unanswered messages didn’t just gnaw at him, it was taking huge bites. He was going to have to miss dinner, get caught up. Frannie would deal with it, possibly would relish some time away from his intensity. Besides, they’d had a date just the night before, a wonderful family dinner with friends at home the night before that.

He had to do some billable work, business development, something worthwhile.

*
   
 
*
    
*
    
*
    
*

Frannie had been able to tell from the tone of his voice that he needed to feel as though he’d accomplished something before he came home; it almost didn’t matter what it was. She told him she’d be fine, she’d wait up. She had a book she was loving. She’d kiss the kids for him.

And, oh, she almost forgot, some potential client had called a little earlier and Frannie had said Hardy would be working late in his office. She’d given his office number, so he might expect a call.

But now, nearly three hours later, there hadn’t been one. He wouldn’t wait around for it. It would come later or it wouldn’t.

Over the past few hours he’d been subliminally aware that the associates downstairs were going home. Their muffled voices carried up the stairs as they passed through Phyllis’s lobby in twos and threes on their way out.

By a little after nine-thirty he’d made all of his return phone calls, mostly to various answering machines, although he had held the hand of one of his prospective new doctor clients and flatly turned down handling two divorces.

He was now doing some substantive preparation, taking notes on a stack of recent briefs that had been filed in various federal courts on the right-to-die issue.

Because he preferred his banker’s lamp to the overheads, he was working almost completely in the dark. The green glass shade cast a soothing pool of light over his desk. Somehow it helped his concentration.

He sat back in his chair, closed his eyes briefly. The building was quiet. Outside, the wind gusted and threw some raindrops against his window, reminding him that it was still coming down. He got up, stretched, crossed back to his window, and looked down on Sutter, nearly deserted at this hour. One dark car was parked directly across from him, but otherwise the curbs were empty. The rest of the street shone darkly, streetlights reflecting off the wet surfaces.

He returned to his desk, pulled his yellow legal pad toward him, grabbed a copy of another published brief, and stopped.

He really ought to go home. He could do this note-taking anytime. It was late on a miserable night. He felt he’d finally paid himself back for the wasted daytime hours, although he couldn’t say he’d accomplished much.

The building’s night bell sounded. This in itself was mildly surprising, since the only people who would normally be coming to the office at this hour would be night-owl associates who had their own keys. It was unlikely that it was a client, especially since Hardy was all but certain that he was the last person in the building. Probably, he thought, it was one of the city’s homeless who’d wandered up the small stoop to get out of the rain, pressed the lit button by mistake.

But it sounded again and he decided he’d better go check. The lighting in the hallway outside of his office was on dim. On the stairway, the same thing. The cavernous lobby ceiling had a few feeble pinheads of light. It was dark as a movie theater.

Hardy descended the curving main staircase and got to the circular marbled alcove at the bottom. Turning the dead bolt in the heavy wooden doors, he pulled the door open.

No one was there.

He stepped out onto the sidewalk to look. No one. Squinting through the rain at the car parked across the way, he couldn’t see anybody in the front seats. The back windows appeared to be darkly tinted. He couldn’t make out anything through them.

Enough of this. He was going home. First back upstairs to his office, where he’d pack his briefcase, and then out of here, out the front door again, down to the parking garage under the building. Home.

*
    
*
    
*
    
*
    
*

The back door to the Giottis’ car swung open. It had been essential to ring the bell to find out if anyone else was in the building, also to be sure that the third-floor light was Hardy. It didn’t look as though there was anyone else still working, but at a time like this one couldn’t be too sure. There were no lights left on in the lower-floor offices.

When the bell rang the second time, the person working upstairs got up, came all the way down, opened the front door, and stepped out onto the sidewalk. It was Hardy, all right, though not exactly the well-dressed version that he presented to the court, whose picture had been all over the newspapers, his sound bites on the news. This was the working attorney, tie undone, coat off, collar open. But even from across the street there was no mistaking him.

There were shadows now, moving in his office. He’d gone back up there. Now the thing to do was ring the bell again, wait for him this time, until he opened the door again.

Then do the thing.

*
    
*
    
*
    
*
    
*

Hardy was just going to finish these last three pages. Otherwise, he’d have to go back and reread the first twelve again to catch up to his place in the brief, to where he was now, if he wanted to reboard the paper’s train of thought. Now, the opening pages were still clear enough in his memory, the syllogistic rhythm of the argument unbroken. He went right back to the spot where he’d left off, picked up his pen, read a few words.

There was a sound.

His head came up and he listened carefully. There couldn’t be a sound. There was no one in the building and he’d locked the door behind him.

Or had he?

Suddenly he couldn’t remember if he’d turned the dead bolt back. It didn’t matter, really, since he was going back down almost immediately, but maybe…

No, he’d locked it. He was pretty sure. He’d be done here in two minutes anyway.

And he was.

He’d heard no other noise, although lost in his reading, hurrying now to finish, scribbling the odd note, he was not likely to have heard one anyway.

Finally, he finished the brief, closed it back to its cover, put down his pen, and leaned back in his chair. He looked up. A silhouette was outlined in the doorway to his office.

39

‘Mr Hardy?’

Hardy’s hand was over his heart. ‘Jesus Christ!’

‘Did I startle you? I’m sorry.’

‘No, that’s all right. As soon as I land I’ll be fine.’

‘Your wife said you’d be working late. I thought…’

‘It’s all right.’ His breath was coming back. ‘How’d you get in here? Was that you who rang the bell?’

‘Yes.’

He took another lungful of air. ‘Where’d you go?’

‘Nobody answered, so I went back to my car. Then — I must have looked away for a minute — I saw the front door closing behind you, then you moving around up here through the window, and I got out to try again, but this time the door was open.’

‘Okay,’ Hardy said. ‘Okay. But I’m afraid it’s a little late. I was just finishing up here, going home. I’m sorry. I can walk you back down, and we’ll make an appointment for tomorrow. How’s that?’

She stepped into the room. Hardy noticed that the strap to her purse was around her neck and that she was holding her purse in front of her with both hands. Or rather, that one hand was in the purse, the other holding it. ‘I’m afraid that won’t do.’

Hardy started gathering his papers, pushed away from the desk, started to stand up. ‘Well, I’m afraid it’s going to have to—’

‘Sit back down, please!’

Something in her voice. He looked back up.

She’d moved another step closer and pulled the purse away, down to her side. Her other hand held a small gun, and she trained it levelly on him. ‘You don’t know who I am, do you?’

‘No, ma’am, but you’ve sure got my attention.’

‘My name is Pat. I’m Judge Giotti’s wife. I’m really sorry to be meeting you like this.’

You’re sorry? Hardy thought. But he said nothing.

Pat Giotti made some clucking sound. ‘You and Mario had a long talk today. He told me all about it.’

‘Yes, ma’am, we did. But he hired me as his lawyer, he may have told you, and I can’t repeat anything he said to me. It’s attorney-client privilege.’

A dry, mirthless chuckle. ‘I know all about that, Mr Hardy. I also know it has no real teeth. I know all the ways it’s been abused.’

‘I wasn’t planning to abuse it.’

‘No, I’m sure you weren’t, not now. But something could happen. Someday. The point is I can’t be positive about it and unfortunately, that’s what I have to be.’

Hardy’s brain was on fire, trying to find a way out in a last desperate spurt of mental energy before it was silenced forever. But no ideas came — other than to keep her talking if he could. ‘Were you this polite to Sal before you hit him?’

Her voice was tight with tension. ‘I don’t think rudeness serves any purpose. I didn’t want to hurt Sal. I don’t think I did hurt Sal.’

No, Hardy thought, only killed him.

But she was going on. ‘But
he
would have hurt us. He would have ruined everything. Nobody seems to understand that. Even Mario didn’t, always saying Sal was harmless, Sal was his old friend, a good guy. Well, let me tell you, Mr Hardy, Sal was out of control. He wasn’t going to stop on his own. Somebody had to stop him. And it didn’t matter, that was the amazing thing. He only had a few months anyway. He was dead in a couple of months at the most.’

‘I know,’ Hardy said. ‘So what happened that you had to do anything?’

Keep her talking. Think.
Think
!

‘You really don’t know? Mario didn’t tell you this?’ A bitter laugh. ‘It’s so typical. He’s always doing things like this, leaving it for me to clean up after him.’

‘Tell me,’ Hardy said.

In her calm hysteria she kept the gun trained on Hardy’s chest.

Her body shifted, its language terrifying. He thought she would pull the trigger now, that it was over. He sucked in a breath.

‘There was that bomb scare, that day, Friday. A little before lunchtime. You knew about that, of course.’

He nodded.

‘When they cleared the building, the courthouse, Mario was out in the alley with his staff. Suddenly Sal is there, pulling him aside, all in a panic, telling Mario he’s got to get the money together, the money isn’t in his safe. He’s thinking Mario took it back somehow. He tells him if he doesn’t get it back, he’s going to spread the word about the fire. He won’t keep quiet any longer.’

She lowered her voice, but not the gun. ‘Don’t you see, Mr Hardy? He would have destroyed Mario’s name. Which is all we have, all we’ve worked for all these years, Mario’s reputation with his peers. And to let that senile
bum
threaten it? No, he had to be stopped. I couldn’t let him bring Mario down. Sal wasn’t anybody. He was dead anyway.’

‘So your husband called you after he went back inside?’

She nodded. ‘He thought Sal had simply misplaced the money — taken it out of the safe, put it somewhere else and forgotten where. So he went back up to Sal’s room with him, to look for it. Can you believe the risk he took doing that? Anyone might have seen him and remembered. Then, when Mario couldn’t find any money, Sal went off at him. Mario yelled back.’