The Second Chair (47 page)

“Thank you.”

“If she wants to talk to you, she’ll call you. That’s how I left it.”

Hardy knew that that was all he was going to get, and damned lucky at that. If Catherine Mooney had remarried and changed her name, which was not unlikely, Washburn wasn’t about to give it to him. Without the call, Hardy might never find her. “I appreciate it,” he said.

Washburn waved the thanks away with his cigar. “Professional courtesy, Mr. Hardy. I’m sure you’d do the same for me.”

“Could I ask you one more question?”

A quick smile washed away the merest flash of impatience. “Certainly.”

“In case I need to see her in person, would you recommend that I stay in the area, or go back up to the city?”

“And which city would that be?
Pace,
” he said. “A joke. I’d stay nearby.”

“Good. Thank you.”

Washburn checked his pocket watch again, nodded with satisfaction. “And with twenty seconds to spare, too. If I would have gone over, it would have cost you.”

Now it was after six o’clock and Hardy brought his cup of espresso to the pay phone by the kitchen at Vino Santo Restaurant on Broadway, across the street from the tobacconists, about five blocks from the courthouse. He had his cellphone with him, of course, but he didn’t want to use it and risk missing Catherine if she called.

“Hello,” Frannie said.

“I’m assuming the kids must have put the phone in your bed, right? Which is how you’re able to answer it.”

“Dismas, I’m fine.”

“In other words, not in bed as the doctor—no, scratch that, two doctors have ordered.”

He heard her sigh. “Did you call to yell at me? Because if you did, you can just call back in a minute and leave it on the machine.”

“I’m not going to yell at you. I’m calling to say I’m probably not getting home anytime soon. I’m down in Redwood City, hoping to talk to a witness for Andrew Bartlett. Are you making dinner?”

“No. As a matter of fact, our two darlings are cooking up something even as we speak. It smells delicious. What’s gotten into them, do you think? They’re being angels.”

“They love their mother and want to take care of her, that’s all. Since, apparently, she won’t take care of herself.”

“You didn’t talk to them?”

“I talk to them all the time. It’s what a father ought to do.”

“That and not nag the mother.”

“Unless she asks for it.”

“Well, whatever you said, thank you. It’s really made a difference.”

“That’s good to hear. Really,” he said. Then added, “But you, don’t push it, okay? I don’t want to come home and have you on your back in bed.”

She lowered her voice. “That’s the saddest thing. You always used to.”

“Here’s a little secret,” he said. “I still do.”

Hardy next reached Wu at the office, where she was getting ready for tomorrow. She told him that the Brolin testimony had gone all right. Judge Johnson had given her considerable leeway with the psychologist, who’d painted Andrew in the best possible light—a young man who didn’t need rehabilitation because he was essentially a good citizen already. As Hardy knew, they had also pulled Mr. Wagner from Sutro in, and he’d testified to Andrew’s basic goodness, his extracurricular activities, talent for writing and the arts in general. Again, there was nothing to rehabilitate. Brandt had not even bothered to cross-examine, and Wu had thought it was because he was prepared to give her these criteria. After all, he only had to win one of them. “But Mr. Brandt fights everything, I’m learning. He called his own witness. Glen Taylor, the inspector who’d arrested him?”

“And what’d he say?”

“Well, Brandt leads him up from the beginning of the investigation, his first suspicions about Andrew, the mounting evidence, right up to the arrest, then asks him if in all that time, did Andrew show the slightest amount of remorse for what he’d done.”

“You objected, of course.”

“Of course, and even got sustained, but he just rephrased. ‘Did Andrew at any time show any remorse about what had happened?’ And of course Taylor said no.”

Hardy, at his table at Vino Santo, drew circles on his legal pad. There weren’t any notes to take or comments to make. This was pretty much pro forma police testimony in proceedings of this kind, and wasn’t particularly sophisticated or damning stuff. It sounded as though Wu had won her point.

He wasn’t so sure, though, about the third criterion—the minor’s previous delinquent history. This both he and Wu had considered a slam dunk, since Andrew had no real record. They hadn’t even planned to call any witnesses, but would let that fact speak for itself. But again, the short lead time Andrew had demanded—aggravated by his suicide attempt—had left them unprepared and vulnerable to attack, and Brandt was ready for it. He called as witnesses two YGC counselors and another San Francisco police officer who had had occasion to meet with Andrew before this case. For while it was true that Andrew had never been “arrested or convicted,” it turned out that, as Brandt phrased it, he had had “previous dealings with the police and youth authority.” The joyride.

Wu had fought back with the standard argument that it hadn’t been a serious offense—he’d never been arrested or even formally charged—but Hardy thought it was bad luck to get surprised in court, and at the very least doubted if they had helped themselves on criterion number three.

And worse, he knew that the problem with number three would impact criterion number four. Obviously, given Andrew’s presence in the courtroom and the fact that he was being charged with special circumstances murder argued more eloquently than mere words could against “the success of the juvenile court’s previous attempts to rehabilitate” him. Like all criminal lawyers, Hardy and Wu both knew that once a defendant began showing up in courtrooms, the cycle was more likely than not to go on repeating itself. From the court’s perspective, and although not legally accurate, this was really Andrew’s second offense. Johnson would be aware of the statistics—people who appeared before him twice most often managed a third; then, as adults, they would start accumulating the strikes that would eventually get to three and put them in jail for life.

“I know we had no witnesses, but did you make any argument at all?” Hardy asked her.

“I just reiterated that he’s got no record. There wasn’t any previous effort at rehab to be successful or not. I know it sounds bad, but we’ve got to win these last two on the merits.”

Hardy hoped she was right. In a completely fair world, she would be, but Johnson had thus far shown himself to be so antagonistic that Hardy wasn’t sure how it would come out. It wasn’t impossible that he’d find against every one of the criteria as an object lesson for Wu to contemplate. And because no one could reasonably dispute his acceptance of the gravity criterion, Johnson would be immune from appeal on the other four. Rejection of any one of the criteria got Andrew into Superior Court as an adult, so the remaining four would be judicial largesse, a personal thumb to the nose.

But if it was to be, it was already done. “So where are we now?” Hardy asked.

“I’ve served the Salarcos,” she said, meaning with subpoenas to appear in court. They’d be there tomorrow. “How are you doing with the wives?”

“Still hoping.”

Silence. Wu asked, “You’ll be in court tomorrow, though, right?”

“That’s my plan.”

“Because we’re opening with your show.”

“I’ll be there,” Hardy said. “Don’t worry.”

The cellphone rang an hour later. He’d had another cup of coffee, his first apple pie à la mode in probably ten years. Forgotten tastes, childhood memories. Delicious beyond imagining.

“Mr. Hardy?”

“Yes.”

“This is Catherine Bass. I’m sorry I’m a little late getting back to you. We’ve got three kids under fifth grade and we just finished supper. But Everett Washburn said this was about Mike Mooney.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Hardy thought her brittle laugh sounded nervous, or embarrassed. “Don’t tell me he left me all his money.”

“No. It’s not that.”

“I’m kidding, of course. Mike wouldn’t have had any money.” Then: “I was so sad when I heard about that. It’s just so unbelievably sad.”

Hardy gave her a second, then said, “I realize that this is an imposition, but would you mind if we talked in person? I won’t take much of your time. I know about small children. I promise I won’t keep you.” Hardy’s intention all along had been to get some face time with either of the wives. He didn’t just want to verify the fact of Mooney’s sexual orientation—after Steven Randell, he didn’t have any real doubts about that. What he wanted was some sense of where it might have played in his married life, in the hope that some of the habits might have continued. Did he have secret liaisons? Long-term but hidden relationships? Was he consumed with smoldering anger or paralyzed by fear of exposure? Were there enemies? Lovers? Blackmailers?

Too much for a phone call with someone he’d never met.

She came back after talking to her husband. “Where are you?” she asked.

Catherine Bass, like his own wife, was a petite redhead. She didn’t have Frannie’s world-class cheekbones; her skin was a bit more freckled and her hair cropped short, but with her striking green eyes and dimples as she smiled, she was very attractive nonetheless. Hardy had the impression that she was still dressed from a day of work at some professional job—she wore low black heels, a gray knee-length skirt, a black turtleneck sweater. She exuded a confident warmth as Hardy stood and they shook hands.

He thanked her for coming to meet him. She waved that off as they both sat and the waitress came to the table—by now Hardy was a resident. Catherine ordered herself a dessert called a chocolate heart attack. “I’ve got CDD,” she said by way of explanation, breaking that dimpled smile again.

“No, let me guess.” Hardy was immediately taken with her. After a second, he said, “Chocolate something something.”

“You’re not from around here, are you? Or it would be obvious. Chocolate Deficit Disorder. It’s pretty serious.”

“Why would I have known that if I lived around here?”

“Because here in the lovely south Peninsula, you have kids and you hear ‘D’ attached to anything, you know it means disorder. You may not realize it, but right now we’re sitting in the Ritalin capital of the world. Every second or third child here has ADD. Or maybe ADHD. At least something.”

“Why is that? I mean, why’s it so big down here?”

She leaned in toward him and lowered her voice. “This is heresy,” she said. “I could be shot if anyone heard me, but it’s because they test for it.”

“Who does?”

“Any parents with a difficult kid. Your children are failing or acting up in school, take them to a shrink, have them tested for ADD. And see if you can guess—you’re a shrink looking for a condition where, if it’s present, you’ve got a lifelong patient and endless billings.”

“They tend to find it?”

“Surprising, is it not? Kind of like asking a car mechanic if you really need the brake job.” She shook her head. “Because it’s not that kids crave attention from their both too busy and can’t be bothered parents, it’s that they’re born with a disorder. Not the parents’ fault, not the kid’s, either, which is the way we like things down here. Don’t get me started.”

Hardy was grinning at her. “I thought you already had.”

“It’s my job,” she said. “Forgive me.”

“Nothing to forgive.”

“I know I get tedious. I’m trying to stop.” The dimples. “Chocolate will help.”

Hardy wanted to keep her talking until she was comfortable, and it didn’t seem like that was going to be much of a chore. “What do you do?”

“I’m a city attorney, believe it or not. I do code enforcement on foster homes and shrinks, mostly, but my real mission is this over-prescribing of Ritalin. It really is an epidemic down here. Maybe it’s everywhere parents can afford to get their kids tested, I don’t know. Maybe kids have fundamentally changed since I was growing up and everybody needs to be medicated. But if you want my opinion, and it looks like you’re going to get it anyway, it’s that most of the time—not always, I admit—kids have this attention deficit because they don’t get attention from their parents. Is it that complicated? Oh God.” She brought her hand to her forehead. “I’m sorry. Especially if your kids have it, and they probably do, don’t they?”

“No. Sometimes they get COUD, but we don’t medicate for that. We just bust them pretty good.”

It took her a second. “Center of universe disorder?”

“You’re good,” he said, smiling. “You must do this all the time.”

The waitress arrived. “This will shut me up.” She stuck a spoon into the dessert, brought it to her mouth, savored. “Okay,” she said, “Mike. You know, I never asked you what about Mike you wanted to talk about.”

“But you still came down here?”

“I still cared about him, although I hadn’t seen him in years. He was a good guy.”

Hardy kept his opinion on that to himself. “That’s what everybody says. But somebody killed him and I’m trying to find out why.”

“Somebody? I understood they had a pretty solid suspect.” An awareness gathered in her eyes. She killed a few seconds licking her spoon. “You’re defending the killer?”

Hardy had gone through this so often that he was tempted to wave it off. But it was the first time that Catherine Bass would have heard it, and he had to give the objection its weight. “The alleged killer, yes. Andrew Bartlett. But I expect he’ll be released maybe as soon as tomorrow. I’m all but certain he didn’t do it. I want to find out who did.”

“And you think I might know? I haven’t laid eyes on Mike in years.”

“I realize that.” He paused, then came out with it. “Mrs. Bass, I know he was gay.”

She closed her eyes for a second, drew a deep breath and let it out. “All right.”

“I’m wondering if that might have played some role in his death.”

“If what did? Being gay? How would it do that?”

“I don’t know. If he had some secret life. . . ?”

She poked the chocolate with her spoon. “Wasn’t someone else killed with him? A girl? One of his students?”

“Yes.”