The Second Chair (34 page)

“No, it’s not likely. But at least it’s somewhere to look. Maybe one of the names will intersect with another part of the investigation.”

“And meanwhile you’re hip deep in a murder and all’s right with the world.”

Glitsky didn’t answer, but he knew Treya was right. He put an arm around her, drew her in next to him. “I don’t love feeling like I’m dancing on Allan’s grave, but looking for his killer is how I ought to be spending my time. Not going to meetings.” A thought struck him and he stopped. “How about this? I’ve been trying to figure out how to get the ATF to help us out here. They’ve got to have access to mailing lists from the net, people who have ordered silencers or the handbooks to make them. They won’t be inclined to share, but once I get the names from Ewing’s list, I’ve got something to trade, right?”

“This is what you need to be doing, Abe. Working cases. Really. You know that?”

He walked a few more steps, then stopped, turned and kissed her. “You think?” he said.

20

L
aura Wright’s parents wouldn’t see Hardy. They didn’t buy his opening gambit that he and they were working toward the same goal—to find Laura’s killer. They did not even want to talk to anybody who had anything to do with defending the murderer of their daughter. Lanny Ropke’s parents were wary, too, but ultimately allowed the interview. June wanted Mark to be home for any discussion Hardy might have with their son, so they scheduled it for 6:30.

Hardy rang the doorbell exactly at the stroke.

Now the four of them sat around a Pottery Barn wrought-iron table in a screened patio off the kitchen door of the Ropkes’ Victorian. Irving Street, out here on Twenty-sixth Avenue, supported the occasional large home on a big lot, and the Ropkes’ was one of them. A tall and well-trimmed laurel hedge hemmed the backyard on all sides, and long shadows fell across the deep lawn in the back. They’d also had room to erect a playground set by the back hedge—swing, slide, sandbox—and half a basketball court. To Hardy’s left, there was another redwood porch off what he assumed was a bedroom, and on it was a large, covered hot tub. Hardy had been introduced to the rest of the family—two cute and well-mannered young adolescent girls named Kim and Susan—but they’d disappeared by the time Mark suggested the patio for the interview. June poured heavily lemoned iced tea from a beaded pitcher.

They were a handsome family, with a strong resemblance along gender lines. June’s button nose and athletic figure were reflected in her two daughters, and Mark and Lanny—both lanky and big-boned, with prominent Adam’s apples, milky blue eyes and ruddy cheeks—might have been brothers. Hardy had a copy of Lanny’s transcipt and he got it out of his briefcase and came right to the point.

“The situation is this. Lanny, when you talked to the police, you told them about Andrew bringing his father’s gun to school, and then talking about maybe using it on Laura and Mr. Mooney. I’m not going to try to get you to say anything that’s not true, but I do want to ask you a few questions that might clarify some things for the defense. I’m assuming you’re okay with helping us out if we’re trying to help Andrew.”

“Sure. He was my best friend. I mean he still is.”

June said, “He wants to go visit him in jail, but after they arrested Andrew, the police said it might not be good to let the two of them talk, since he was going to be a prosecution witness.”

“I wouldn’t change what I said, Mom. I’m not going to lie.”

“No. Of course you’re not, Lanny. No one’s suggesting that,” June said.

“We thought it seemed like a reasonable suggestion,” Mark added. “That’s all.”

Hardy smiled tolerantly at the parents. He was starting to see why they both wanted to be here while he talked to Lanny. “Well, my opinion,” he said, “is it really wouldn’t do any harm to either of them, but that’s of course your decision.” He shifted to the boy. “So, Lanny, what we’re facing immediately, this next Tuesday, is a hearing to see if Andrew gets tried as an adult or not. And I’d like to call you as a witness to talk about the kind of guy Andrew is.”

“I’d do that.”

“Good. Let’s talk about the gun. When you first saw it, what was your reaction?”

Lanny considered for a moment. “I don’t know what you mean, exactly. It freaked me out. I mean, a gun at school is not a good idea.”

June spoke up. “We don’t understand why he didn’t tell . . . well, at least
somebody
about it right away.”

“I didn’t want to get Andrew in trouble.” His eyes implored Hardy to ignore his mother. “We’ve gone through this a hundred times. I didn’t think he was going to use it.”

“Why not?”

“It’s just not who he is. When I talked to the police, they just wanted to hear about how Andrew had the gun and talked about using it. Which he did, I’m not denying that. But that was like way back in December, definitely before Christmas, while they were still broken up. By the time of the killings, it wasn’t an issue at all anymore.”

“But he still had the gun?”

Lanny shot a quick look at both of his parents, came back to Hardy. “I mean, you’ve got to know Andrew. He’s a little . . . dramatic sometimes. He liked to play with, I don’t know . . . ,” he searched for the right word, “ . . . ideas? After he’d gotten away with it for a while, he got to thinking it was cool, I guess, that everybody thought he was this nerdy good student and he carried a gun around. He didn’t have to use it. It just made him feel like he was putting something over on everybody. I think, if you want to know the truth, Mooney might have had something to do with that.”

Mark cleared his throat. “Now, wait a minute, Lanny. I thought we agreed that it wasn’t Mr. Mooney’s fault that somebody shot him.”

June concurred. “He didn’t bring it on himself.”

Lanny let out a breath of frustration, talked to Hardy. “But Andrew’s idea of keeping the gun for when they rehearsed, Mooney thought that was neat. He wanted it out there. I think, otherwise, Andrew would have put it back. He was starting to be afraid he’d get caught.”

Hardy sat back. “So there was no blowup in the last day or two?”

“No. Not that I knew.”

“And Laura and Andrew were solid. Together.”

“More than ever, I think.” He flashed to his parents. “I guess everybody knows she was pregnant by now.”

“Andrew says he didn’t know it while she was alive.”

“That’s true,” Lanny said. “He would have told me.”

Mark came forward, his eyes alight with a possibility. “Hey, what about this? Maybe Laura told him she was pregnant that night and Andrew thought it was Mooney’s . . .”

Lanny turned on him, raised his voice. “He wouldn’t have thought it was Mooney’s, Dad. She wasn’t sleeping around. She was with Andrew and he knew it.”

“Maybe it
was
Mr. Mooney’s baby, though,” June said. “Maybe they did have a relationship, Mr. Mooney and Laura, back when Andrew was first worried about it . . .”

Hardy put a stop to the argument. “Even if they did,” he said, “the baby was Andrew’s. They took his DNA when they booked him. He was the father.”

“And Mooney didn’t do it with Laura, Mom, for God’s sake. He just didn’t!”

“How do you know that?” June asked. “I don’t see how you can be so sure.”

“If I may,” Hardy interjected. “Mrs. Ropke, do you have some reason to think he did?”

Silence descended. June Ropke’s eyes had gone wide with surprise, and an embarrassed giggle escaped. “Well, no, of course not. I mean . . .” Her eyes went to her husband, then Lanny, finally to Hardy. “Except, well, the rumors, you know. That he’d slept with students before.”

Hardy brought a hand up to his mouth. Andrew’s short story had introduced this basic topic, but this was the first corroboration of it he’d heard in the real world. Earlier in the day, he’d talked to the principal at Sutro, and Mr. Wagner had scoffed at the idea. Mr. Mooney was a charismatic and relatively young teacher, and girls undoubtedly got crushes on him, but he had never to Wagner’s knowledge had a breath of scandal surface. From Hardy’s perspective, though, if rumors about Mooney were even circulating, then regardless of their substance this would add credibility to the prosecution’s theory of Andrew’s motive.

“I haven’t ever heard anything like that,” Mark said. “And if there was even a shred of truth to it, Sutro would have kicked him out. I’m sure of that.”

“That’s why I’ve never believed them, either,” June said. Although Hardy was not sure this was the truth.

He turned to the young man. “What about you, Lanny? Were there rumors? Did students think Mr. Mooney slept around?”

“I’d never heard that,” Lanny said. But, of course, Hardy reasoned, Lanny had come to understand the damage he’d done to Andrew. Now he wanted to protect his best friend if he could, and that’s what he’d have to say.

Hardy knew that if he were going to introduce any plausible alternative theory of the murders for either a jury or a judge to consider, he had to get more of a handle on the lives and circumstances of the two victims. If he could somehow establish that someone else had a strong motive to kill either or both of them, Hardy might be able to create some doubt about Andrew. At this stage, he’d take almost anything. But Laura’s parents had already shut him out.

That left Mike Mooney. He’d thought that Lanny Ropke might give him some insight into the teacher beyond what he’d already gleaned from Andrew and his damned short story, but if anything, Lanny had only strengthened Andrew’s apparent motive—this was doubly damning because clearly that was the last thing he wanted to do.

Any thought of spending time this weekend with Frannie or the kids had to be banished to the exigencies of the case, and they’d opted to get in one last ski weekend before the slopes closed. Now, full dark on this warm Friday night—Hardy pulled up to an address on Poplar Avenue in Burlingame, fifteen miles or so south of the city. He found he could park in an empty driveway—what a concept!—and then walked on stones placed in the lawn to a craftsman-style bungalow’s porch, where a light burned and where he pressed the bell, which echoed within.

The door opened. “Mr. Hardy?” A practiced, formal smile. “Please, come in.” He offered a hand. “I’m Ned Mooney.”

Mooney’s father lived on the property of the Baptist church which he served as minister, although he wasn’t wearing a clerical collar tonight at home, but a black V-neck pullover and black slacks. Hardy followed him into a dim, well-furnished semi-sunken living room with a baby grand piano in one corner and a lifetime of books and magazines on the dark wood built-in bookshelves. He took the deep red leather chair—one of a pair of them—that Mooney indicated. The reverend took the other one, sat back, smiled his professional smile again, threw one leg over the other and clasped his hands on his lap.

There were deep bags under his eyes, a sallowness to the skin which wasn’t just the poor lighting. A few strands of gray hair covered his scalp. Reverend Mooney looked to be at least seventy years old. Though his handshake had been firm and his walk to this room steady, Hardy sensed a deep fatigue, as though he were drawing upon his last reserves of strength. “You said you’re defending the boy accused of shooting Michael,” he began in a very quiet voice, “so I’m not sure what I’ll be able to do to help you.”

“I’m not, either, Reverend, though it might help you to know that what I’m most interested in is no different from the police. I want to identify your son’s killer. I don’t believe that’s my client.”

“You don’t? Why not? From what I understand, the case against him is very strong.”

“Actually, there are any number of problems with it, not the least of which is that there’s no physical evidence tying him to the murder weapon, no evidence that he fired a gun at all that night. And they have to prove he did. Andrew doesn’t have to prove he didn’t.”

Mooney rubbed his weary eyes. “And they don’t have that?”

“No, sir.”

“What about all the yelling? Didn’t the man upstairs say they’d been fighting all night?”

Hardy leaned in closer. “I talked about this with Andrew just this morning. Do you know what play they were practicing?”

“Yes. I think it was
Who’s Afraid of
 . . .” He stopped. “Where the characters are yelling at each other for half the play, aren’t they?”

“Yes, sir.” He paused. “They weren’t fighting. They were rehearsing.”

Mooney eased himself all the way back into his chair, slumped low. Eyes closed, he templed his hands over his mouth and blew into them. Finally, he opened his eyes again. “It doesn’t really matter,” he said. “It won’t bring him back.”

“No. But the wrong man shouldn’t be punished. Would your son have wanted that? Would you?”

He sat low in the chair, nearly horizontal. “I’ve spent all of my life in the service of God, Mr. Hardy. I don’t understand how He could have done this to me. After He took Margaret, Michael was all I had left.” The man’s sincerity was heartrending. “He was my pride and joy.” He pointed with an unsteady hand. “You see that piano over there? You should have heard Michael on it, playing like an angel and singing along, ever since he was child. He just had an immense and God-given talent. He was such a wonderful boy. Then those tapes. Do you see them? That whole second shelf? Those are the acting jobs, the television, even parts in some movies. I tell myself that someone born with that much, God only lets us keep them a short while before He wants them back. I tell myself . . .”

Hardy understood what he was saying. He’d lost an infant son over thirty years before—also named Michael, he suddenly realized, but he wasn’t going to let himself get sidetracked down that path now. He was here for his client.

“Reverend Mooney.” His voice barely intruded on the room’s stillness. “Aside from his performing, what was his life like? I’m trying to get a sense of if there might have been someone who would have a reason to want to hurt him.”

The old man shook his head. “He didn’t have any enemies. Everybody loved him.”

“Do you know if he’d had a run-in with one of his students? Maybe gave somebody a poor grade?”