The Hearing (3 page)

“It’s all right.” He gave her a chance to continue, and when it didn’t seem she could, he asked softly, “What don’t you know? Is it Jeff?”

She shook her head. “No, Jeff’s all right. Jeff’s fine.” She blew out heavily.

Hardy pulled a chair around and Dorothy stared at it for a minute as though she’d never seen one before. Finally, with an air of gratitude, she sat. “Thank you.” She shook her head wearily. “I don’t seem to know what to do. I started to go by Jeff’s office but then I didn’t want to interrupt him—he’s on deadline. So I just found myself walking downtown and thought of you, that you worked here. Actually, I thought of you before.”

“Before? When before?”

“When I was at the homicide detail.”

Hardy found his desk and pushed himself back up onto it. With a bedside manner smile, he spoke quietly. “I don’t think I’ve heard the homicide part yet, Dorothy. Maybe we want to start there. Why were you at the Hall?”

“My brother. Did you hear about Elaine Wager being killed?”

Hardy said he did. The news had depressed him. Not that he’d been that close to Elaine, but he had known her, had considered her one of the good guys.

“They have arrested my brother for it.”

Hardy shook his head. “That can’t be right, Dorothy. I heard they pulled in some bum.”

Dorothy’s lips were pressed tightly together. She nodded. “He’s a heroin junkie. My brother Cole. Cole Burgess.”

Not possible, Hardy thought. Flatly not possible. Dorothy Elliot, sitting in front of him, was the picture of corn-fed wholesomeness. He’d known her for over a decade, since she’d first begun dating Jeff. Now they had three daughters and she still looked like a farm girl—those big shoulders over a trim and strong body, clear eyes the shade of blue-bonnets, a wash of freckles cascading over her nose onto her cheeks.

Dorothy Elliot was pretty, smiling all the time, well-adjusted and happy. There was
no way,
Hardy thought, that this woman’s brother could be the low-life animal that had shot Elaine Wager in the back of the head for some jewelry and the contents of her purse.

He sought some fitting response, said he was sorry, finally asked. “Did your brother know her? Were they going out or something? Working together?”

“No. Nothing like that. But the police are saying he was incoherent when they brought him in, they couldn’t even confirm who he was until this morning. And when he finally could, he called my mother, which was of course no help.”

“And where is your mother?”

“Jody.” Dorothy’s expression was distilled disapproval. “She lives here in town now. Out in the Haight. With Cole.”

“With Cole? So he wasn’t homeless after all.”

“Well, that depends on your definition. He wasn’t with Mom too often, but she was there if he needed to crash. He had a rent-free room. She moved out here from home—Ohio—to be near him.” Another look of disgust. “To help him.”

“And she wasn’t much of a help?”

A snort. “But he called her from the Hall anyway. And then after she predictably flipped out and couldn’t get anything done, she called me.”

“What did she try to do?”

A calm had gradually settled over her. Hands had come to rest in her lap, shapely legs were crossed at the ankles. There was no sign of her usual cheerfulness, but her confidence was returning. The topic was awful, but she had facts to convey. “He’s in heroin withdrawal, Diz. He needs to be medicated.” She broke off and decided she’d said enough about that. “Anyway, Mom lost her credibility with the police in about ten seconds, accusing everybody of trying to kill her son, the poor lost little boy.” She paused again, sighed heavily. “But he does need to get into a detox situation soon.”

Hardy matched her tone—matter-of-fact. “They have programs in place for that. As soon as they book him . . .”

But she was shaking her head. “The police are saying Cole is only drunk and they’re not through with him.”

“So you’re saying he wasn’t drunk?”

“Probably that too.” She impatiently brushed some flaxen hair from her forehead. “But if he was desperate enough to mug somebody, he was after cash for heroin. That means probably he was already into withdrawal, drinking to kill the pain with alcohol until he could score.”

A silence settled. Finally, Hardy laced his fingers in his lap. He had heard enough to know he really didn’t want to be involved in this. He liked Jeff, liked Dorothy, saw them socially three or four times a year. And now Dorothy wanted to hire him to defend the man who’d killed one of his colleagues. And though he’d been successful in his three previous murder trials, though he’d gotten himself a reputation, this time Hardy wasn’t interested.

He’d known, liked and admired Elaine Wager. He had no desire to help her killer. There were other lawyers who could live with defending Dorothy’s brother a lot more easily than he could. And they were welcome to do it. But the longer they talked, the more he would give her the impression of tacit acceptance. In spite of that, he couldn’t resist the next question. “So what do you want me to do, Dorothy?”

“He needs to get into detox and I don’t know the channels. I need somebody they’ll listen to, who knows how to talk down there.” Her eyes were telling him that she didn’t like it any more than he did. But it was family duty. Her heartland values wouldn’t let her shirk it.

Hardy told himself he wasn’t agreeing to defend Elaine’s killer. He’d see what he could do to get a suspect into detox. He was helping a friend, that was all, another heartland value that
he
couldn’t shirk. It wasn’t going to go beyond that.

Hardy figured he could get the fastest results by going directly to the head of homicide, who happened to be his best friend. On the fourth floor of the Hall of Justice, he exited the world’s slowest elevator and was looking at Sarah Evans, a homicide inspector who was married to one of David Freeman’s associates. He and Frannie would occasionally socialize with Sarah and Graham. He considered her a friend, and usually she greeted him warmly. But today her look was guarded.

“If you’re here to see the lieutenant, maybe you want to come back another day.”

“Less than his usual bubbly self, is he?”

She just shook her head, said “Good luck. I warned you,” and pushed by him into the elevator.

So he was wondering as he walked the long hallway down to the homicide detail. This was a spacious, open area with grimy windows all along the back wall. The twelve inspectors in the unit had their desks here, most of them face to face with those of their partners. The usual bureaucratic detritus cluttered up the work space—green and gray metal files, a watercooler, a coffee machine that from the look of it might have been Joe DiMaggio’s original Mr. Coffee. There was also the working stoplight, which added a certain tone.

To Hardy’s right as he entered the detail were three doors. The two on either end led to interrogation rooms; the one in the middle to the audiovisual controls room. To his left, the lieutenant’s office was a hundred-square-foot rectangle that some architectural wizard had carved out as an obvious afterthought.

Glitsky’s door stopped him dead.

For many years, there had been no door to Glitsky’s office. Finally, three years back, after months of trying to cajole the bureaucracy into buying a door, Glitsky had had enough. He came in himself on a weekend and hung one he’d bought with his own money.

Thereby admitting that he cared about it.

Big mistake.

Immediately Glitsky’s prize door became an untapped bonanza for any psychologist who might want to study the effects of stress on otherwise normal people whose job it became to investigate murders. After the first impressive flurry of graffiti and property damage in the weekend after he’d hung it, Glitsky had made it a point of honor to refrain from comment or reaction no matter what his people did to it. And they did plenty.

Eventually the door had become a living testament to something profound and not particularly flattering about San Francisco’s homicide detail. A large poster of Bozo the Clown with the international “NO” symbol commanded the center of it, but that was among the first, and the mildest, of desecrations. By the last time Hardy had come up here a few weeks before, there hadn’t been a pristine inch left. Burn marks, spitballs, chewed gum, three bullet holes, assorted bumper stickers, picture ads for prostitutes, photos of murder suspects from ancient cases.

The homicide inspectors thought it was a funny, running gag. Glitsky didn’t see it that way, but he wasn’t going to whine about it. There were other approaches.

One night he had come down to the Hall on a late call and happened to arrive as one of his inspectors, Carl Griffin—now deceased—was adding some graphic flourishes to a wanted poster someone else had tacked to the door. Griffin had been engaged in his artwork and hadn’t heard Glitsky come up behind him, didn’t hear a thing even as Glitsky whacked him on the head with his sap, knocking him senseless for several minutes.

Glitsky thought
that
was funny.

Even funnier because Griffin could never say anything about it without appearing to be an idiot. But somehow the word had gotten out. And the stakes had been raised.

Now Hardy stared. The door was flat white. He could still smell the paint. And it was closed—a rarity during the working day. Struck by the stunning blankness, Hardy whistled softly and looked out over the open room. At least casually acquainted with most of the homicide inspectors, he recognized Marcel Lanier, who was seated at his desk, a pencil poised over some paper.

The inspector was looking back at him. He shook his head and spoke with a quiet authority. “I wouldn’t.”

“Somebody with him?”

“No.”

“When did this happen?” The door.

A shrug. “He came in after lunch with a bucket and a roller. Took him ten minutes.”

“Is he all right?”

A shrug. It wasn’t for a sergeant to say.

Hardy thought about it. Two warnings from two solid professionals. The smart move would be perhaps to skip it for now, pick a better time.

But he’d just driven down from his office, paid to park, come all the way up for this personal visit with his best friend. It was the end of the day, anyway. Whatever it was, Abe would deal with it. Maybe Hardy could even help. Besides, he was tired of well-meaning gatekeepers trying to keep him from people he needed to see. First Phyllis with David Freeman. Now Sarah Evans and Marcel Lanier with Glitsky.

“I think I’ll just see how he’s doing,” he said. “No guts, no glory.”

He knocked on the post next to the shocking white door and heard the familiar growl of a response. “It’s open.”

Inside, Hardy’s first reaction was to reach for the light switch, but Glitsky spoke again. “Leave it.” The room wasn’t exactly dark, but with the overheads off and the shades drawn on both windows, it wasn’t exactly light either. “You want to get the door.”

Hardy did as instructed. “I couldn’t read a damn thing in this light. I don’t know how you do it. It’s got to be tough on the eyes.”

“What do you want, Diz?”

Hardy found the wooden chair opposite the desk and lowered himself into it. “Nice door. I love the color.”

No answer.

“What’s going on, Abe?”

“Nothing.”

“You all right?” After a lengthy silence, Hardy said, “You want to talk about it?”

“There’s nothing to talk about.” Glitsky’s chair scraped. He pushed himself back from his desk and leaned into the wall behind him on the chair’s back legs.

Hardy’s eyes were adjusting. He gave it another try. “It’s after five o’clock. You feel like a drink?”

“I don’t drink.”

“Really? Since when?” Hardy had only been Glitsky’s pal for twenty-five years. “Sometimes it’s not the worst idea in the world.”

Glitsky came forward in his chair, clasped his hands on the desk before him. When he spoke, his voice had softened. “I’m trying to work something out, all right. Meanwhile, what can I help you with?”

There was nothing to be gained from pushing Glitsky’s issue, whatever it was, so Hardy drew a breath and started. “You’ve got a guy across the way there, Cole Burgess—”

“Yeah. Elaine Wager’s killer.”

“Alleged killer, as we say in the defense biz.”

“Are you defending him?”