Dead Irish (10 page)

“Fresh, though. It’s probably only been in there about two years.”

After the first taste, though, it didn’t bother Hardy. He took another. “So what’s suicide/equivocal?”

“Suicide/equivocal means Strout—the M.E.—wants to straddle the fence.”

“Why?”

“ ’Cause he’s got a rep for not being wrong.”

“But I’ve got to have it come down one way or the other.”

Glitsky stared out the window, sipping his coffee.

“Yo, Abe,” Hardy said.

“Griffin came by and said it was a bullshit verdict, should have been a righteous suicide. He said he’d recommended that to Strout.”

“So he’s not inclined to do anything else?”

Glitsky motioned to his desk. “There’s the file. He gave it to me, said I should tell my friend—that’s you, Diz—to call him if you found anything. So no, I’d say Griffin’s not gonna do much.”

“But the case is still open?”

Glitsky shrugged. “Some cases stay open. It’s a technicality.”

“It sucks.” Hardy drank half the can of beer as Glitsky continued memorizing the skyline until he finally said, “If you got anything, I’ll listen.”

“I got nada,” Hardy admitted. “Cruz told me a flat-out lie. I directly asked him if he’d known Eddie Cochran and he paused, thought about it, and said no. I wonder why. That kind of thing.”

“And he wouldn’t see you.”

“Yeah, that.”

They were silent. Outside Glitsky’s office, there were sounds of people going home. Hardy could see the traffic backing up on the Oakland Bridge. He drank some warm beer, then reached over and grabbed the file off Glitsky’s desk, began leafing through the few pages.

After a minute, Hardy tapped the file. “Like here. Look at this.”

Glitsky came to stand over his shoulder.

“Yeah, that’s weak,” he said.

“ ‘I’m sorry. I’ve got to . . . ,’ ” Hardy read. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Maybe he had to go to the bathroom.”

“Maybe anything. Griffin calls this a suicide note?”

“He doesn’t say not.”

Hardy closed the file. “Abe, this isn’t exactly what you’d call compelling. Where’d they find it?”

“In the car.” Glitsky pointed down on the page. “See, there. In the car.”

“Not on his person even? He might’ve written this a year ago.”

“I know.” Glitsky crossed to the window, leaned out to see the street down below. “Maybe something else is going on.”

“Yeah, and maybe that something is screwing Frannie out of her insurance.”

Glitsky, without turning around, nodded. “Maybe.”

Hardy went back to reading, tipping the beer back. “And this? Griffin couldn’t tell me this?”

“What?”

“The gun was fired twice. What? Ed wanted to take a few rounds of target practice so he’d be sure he didn’t miss?”

Glitsky said nothing. Hardy turned more pages, paused at the photographs, closed the file and drank more beer. “Sucks, this really sucks.”

Glitsky went back to the file drawer and leaned against it. “I tell you what, Diz. You find me some evidence for feeling like that.”

Hardy nodded. This was a first-time, maybe one-time offer. A good sign. It undoubtedly nagged at Glitsky too. Hardy forced himself to look back at the pictures of Ed, the gun maybe a foot from his right hand. Under his head, a large pool had formed, looking black under the camera’s lights. He stared at the picture a long time, the body lifeless, lying on its side, perhaps two feet from the building.

“You also wonder, if he killed himself, that he wasn’t sitting back against the building when he pulled the trigger,” Hardy said.

Glitsky finished his coffee and dropped the cup into the wastebasket. “Yeah, you do,” he said. “It’s a marvel how much there is to wonder about.”

12

ARTURO CRUZ HAD the top down on his Jaguar XK-E, enjoying the rare warm evening as he drove up out of China Basin on his way home.

Last night, he’d been furious with Jeffrey. For one of the first times since they’d been together, they hadn’t made love. Jeffrey had gotten huffy and stormed out before dinner and hadn’t come back until this morning.

So when he walked into the office, all Cruz could think of was his relief that he was back, and he hugged him, his anger forgotten, the reason for the fight, everything. If he was back, then everything was okay.

And everything had been all right again. A good day, a good issue on the streets, another good one put to bed. The May figures of
La Hora
had come in and ad linage was up six percent over last May. Revenues up over fourteen percent!

And the revenue increase was all because of their circulation, on which they based their ad rates. And now, with distribution going in-house, the bottom-line figure would skyrocket next year. If they could keep
El Dia
away from their market share. But they would do that.
La Hora
was the better paper.
El Dia
was still a rag, maybe five years away from quality.

Still, the threat, though distant, caused him to frown. He had to keep his eye on the ad linage. If that dipped, even a little, it might mark a trend. He’d better have some projection graphs made tomorrow.

He dictated a memo on that, then put the handheld tape recorder into its holder on the dashboard. That was enough business. And it
had
been a good day.

Until that fellow Hardy had come back. And thinking of that, he almost got mad again. Why had Jeffrey told Hardy he had known Ed Cochran? And how had he, Cruz, then been so stupid as to deny it? The day before, he’d told the other inspector, Giometti, that they’d been business acquaintances. Well, that’s probably what Hardy had come back for, about that inconsistency.

Cruz would just say—now that he’d examined it—that he thought Hardy had been talking about a personal relationship between him and Cochran. That would take care of it. But in any event, he had to clear up the misunderstanding with Jeffrey.

He turned his car left onto Market, lowered the visor against the setting sun. He should have taken care of it today, but with Jeffrey coming back, he’d been so happy, it had just slipped his mind. That wouldn’t do, he thought. That kind of carelessness.

He would have to watch it. And, uncomfortable though it might be, he would have to talk to Jeffrey about it again. But this time it would be when he was relaxed. And he wouldn’t be angry—he’d simply explain it all very clearly so that all the nuances would be understood. Then, if Hardy or Giometti came around again, they’d be ready for him, and the questions could stop.

That was all he wanted, really. That the questions stop.

Hardy opened the door to Schroeder’s, an old-fashioned German restaurant downtown, and was nearly overwhelmed with a sense of déjà vu. It had been a favorite haunt back in his postcop days as an assistant D.A., before the divorce with Jane.

He realized he hadn’t been in the place since that time, maybe eight years before. He wasn’t at all surprised to find it hadn’t changed a bit. What was atypical, he knew, was how he felt—he actually wouldn’t mind casually running into someone. Almost anybody. And Schroeder’s had been that kind of place back then—off-duty cops, other D.A.s, reporters, attorneys who weren’t corporate and didn’t want to be. People hanging out, mingling, schmoozing over a few beers.

Tonight, if it worked out, he might get back in touch with the city he lived in. Or not. He thought it sort of interesting that he considered it.

Afterward, he wasn’t sure about the order of the two jolts. He had just gotten his Dortmunder and was looking around, enjoying the feel of things, when his ex-wife, Jane, stood up not forty feet from him across the room. That was the first one. Then came the sharp first tremor of the earthquake.

Hardy stood up and made his way through tables, away from Jane, until he got to the hallway leading back to the restrooms.

It was a good shaker, perhaps a five or six, and it continued rolling as he walked. The restaurant became quiet as everyone held their breath. The chandeliers swung heavily and several glasses fell from the back of the bar. Hardy stood, in theory secure under a beam, and waited.

The tremor stopped, and after a round of nervous laughter, the room went back to being itself. Hardy watched Jane walk directly toward him.

She looked, after eight years, impossibly the same. Now thirty-four, she could have passed for twenty-five. Her face was still as unlined, unmarked by the passage of years, as a baby’s. That made sense, Hardy thought. It’s what lack of a sense of guilt could do for you.

She was still unaware of him, and he couldn’t help taking her in. Tall, slim, radiant dark hair casting highlights even in the dim room. Looking down slightly as she walked—graceful, serene. The face again, he kept coming back to the face, with its slightly Asian cast, though no one knew where that had come from. It was really only a heaviness in the eyelids, but with the wide cheekbones, the rosebud lips, there was a geisha air. She was elegantly dressed, as always. Gold earrings. A blouse in pink silk, pleated dark blue skirt, low heels.

Now ten feet away, she finally looked up, and there it was, that million-dollar slow smile that had completely changed his life. She stopped, looked, let the smile build just slowly enough to work on him. And it did. He found himself smiling back.

“Small world,” he said, his first words to her since he’d left their house.

Of course she would kiss him, hug him. But not gushing. Slow and savoring. An old, old and very dear friend. “You look wonderful,” she said. “How have you been? How are you? What are you doing now?”

He had to laugh. “I’m good, Jane. I’ve been fine.”

She touched his arm, smiled into his eyes. “I can’t believe I’m seeing you.”

She stopped, impulsively hugged him again.

Some sense-memory made him remember why it had been so hard to consider someone, anyone else. His whole being just responded to her. It wasn’t a social thing. He just looked at her and smiled, his life full and complete, like a moonstruck teenager.

But a half-dozen-plus years don’t, after all, go away without a trace. Whole new synapses had been created, and the warning janglings that he felt had become a part of his makeup were sounding like crazy.

“Who are you here with?”

She still held his arms, just above his elbows. “Just Daddy and some friends.”

Daddy. Judge Andy Fowler. The doyen of the San Francisco bench—who’d gotten Dismas his first interview for D.A., who’d been, during the troubles, a surprising confidant.

Then that sly look. “Why do you want to know?”

He told himself to stop smiling, damn it, but standing here so close to her, looking into her amused eyes, even now catching a whiff of the perfume . . .

“I thought maybe a drink would be nice.”

She nodded. “I’d like that.” Then, “If you want.”

He laughed, shrugged. “I don’t know if I want, to tell you the truth.”

She kissed him again, quickly. “Let me go pee and dump Daddy.”

“No one?” she asked. “Didn’t you wish you could love anybody?”

She drank Absolut now, rocks. She had given up smoking. He told himself she couldn’t possibly care about his nonexistent love life.

“I don’t know anymore if love’s a feeling or an attitude.”

She laughed, throat extended, looking up. “Dismas,” she said when the laugh was all finished. She sipped her drink. “That is such a Dismas thing to say.”

Why didn’t that annoy him?

“Well, the point is, I never felt enough, you know, to make any decisions.”

“Decisions?”

“Not decisions, really. I guess commitments.” He swallowed the rest of his scotch and signaled the bartender for another round.

Jane covered his hand with her own. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t laughing at you.”

“I know.”

She squeezed the hand gently, not coming on. Not consciously coming on.

“Anyway”—leaving his hand on the bar covered with hers—“there hasn’t been anyone. Where there was anything going on, I mean.” He didn’t like the way that made it sound—as though he’d been pining away for Jane. “But it’s been no big deal,” he said, “one way or the other.” There, that put it in perspective. “How about you?” he asked.

To his surprise, she’d been married and divorced again.

“It wasn’t very serious,” she said. “It was more a rebound thing.”

“Being married wasn’t serious?”

She sighed. “It seemed serious for a while. I guess I was just lonely, confused, you know. It wasn’t long after”—she hesitated, perhaps wondering what it would sound like—“us.”

The new round came, and she moved her hand. Hardy watched it tap the bar once, then settle into her lap. He reached over and held it.

Holding her hand in her lap.

“I don’t care,” he said, not sure what he was referring to.

“Dismas,” she began, squeezing his hand.

He interrupted her. “Let’s go outside.”

The night was still warm. The building felt almost hot as he pressed her up against it.

No nonsense. None at all. Out the side door to the alley and around the back, near the employee entrance, between some parked cars, empty cardboard boxes scattered here and there. A building or two down there was a light, up high.

Holding hands all the way out, then stopping when they had turned the corner. The kiss openmouthed, hungry. Backing away a step, pulling up the skirt, stepping out of the shoes. A quick look around, then the hose down and off and thrown somewhere, maybe into one of the boxes.

And then the warm building, Hardy’s pants not even down, pressing it to her, into her, wet and ready, legs hitched up high on his hips, the kissing wonderful wordless pumping of it.

“Oh, God, Daddy’s still here.”

Hardy had her arm. They, neither of them, were about to invite the other back to their respective houses, and so they decided on a nightcap back inside.

“What if he’d come out . . .”

“Knowing Andy, he would’ve come back in here and had a drink and he’d never let on he saw us.”

“What if he notices my stockings?”

Hardy squeezed the arm. “You’re not wearing any.”

A look that said “That’s what I mean,” when suddenly there was no avoiding him, getting up from his table as they came in.

Hardy was still weak in the knees, wanting to talk to Jane about what it might mean, but knowing he’d have to put that off. Andy saw him, flashed a look at his daughter, then closed the space between them.

“You said an old friend,” to Jane, with some hint of reproof, “not old family.”

The eyes took Hardy in. “You look fine, son. Life treating you okay?”

They got through the small talk, meeting his dinner companions, who were going home anyway, getting to the bar. If Hardy looked fine, Andy looked incredible. Still skinny as a stick, face unlined, hair thick and the color of stout. Dressed now in a camel’s-hair sport coat and tie.

Andy wasn’t famed for a beat-around-the-bush approach. “So what’s with you two together?” was the first thing he asked at the bar.

“Pure accident,” Jane answered.

“Anybody believes in pure accidents in this life isn’t paying close enough attention.” He sipped a cognac. “Maybe meeting here was an accident, but sitting here with me two hours later has the ring of volition.”

Hardy laughed. Andy had the same style from the bench. He took it right to Hardy. “So what are you doing with yourself? I keep expecting to see you in court one of these days. Get back to the trade.”

Jane sat between them, included by position. Hardy talked a little, occasionally touching Jane’s back with the flat of his hand. She leaned back or over—into it.

Hardy, ex–assistant D.A., shook his head. “I’m just not that cerebral. I think if I did anything I’d go back to being a cop.”

Andy raised his eyebrows. “Doesn’t rule out cerebral.”

“Maybe we don’t know the same cops.”

“If we’re talking cerebral, maybe we don’t know the same attorneys.”

“Anyway,” Hardy continued, “I think my friend Glitsky might try to help me get back on the force, but I’m not really inclined to it. I don’t like having a boss.”

“Me neither. Oh, for a spot on the federal bench!”

But this was an old lament, and not too sincere. Federal judges were appointed for life and, barring outrageous impeachable conduct—a likelihood never ever to occur with Andy Fowler—the job was one of those on earth most resembling God’s. But Andy had been at Superior Court for twenty-five years, and Hardy knew he was happy there. Not that he wouldn’t take the job with no boss, but he wasn’t lobbying for it.

After Hardy had gotten into what he was doing now, Andy stopped smiling.

“I know a little about Arturo Cruz,” he offered. “He’s a dirty son of a bitch, isn’t he?” This was news to Hardy, who knew only that Cruz was a liar. “If I get the case, I’ll have to disqualify myself. Damn shame.”